Escape Attempt 50
by Batmanskipper
Summary: Sequel to Escape Attempt 49: the team has gone back to their old lives and everything seems to be back to normal until Blowhole crash lands in an English POW camp demanding to see Kowalski. Meanwhile, Hans apparently isnt dead and Skipper and Marlene have gone missing. The team will somehow have to get back together again to rescue Skipper and the vital information he was carrying.
1. Crash Landing

**This is a sequel to Escape Attempt 49 set a few months later. I would highly recommend that if you haven't read Escape Attempt 49 that you read that first as otherwise it will be difficult to understand what's going on as there is no recap. **

"…The plane is falling out of the sky like a blazing comet, but somehow the pilot still appears to be maintaining control despite heavy flak damage. In fact, he would appear to be crash-landing right near…" the American was cut off as the burning plane roared past him only a few feet away from where he was standing and into the woods.

"Awesome, totally awesome." His friend added, staring at the direction of the accident, "Totally, awesome." Like a moth to the flames of the burning plane the private stumbled through the woods to the site of the plane, smoke billowing from the fuselage, though fortunately the fire had not reached the fuel tanks. The pilot had been thrown clear and was lying limp on the ground a few feet away.

"This is Chuck Charles reporting live from the sight of the crash." Private Charles continued taking a closer look at the plane. You'd never guess he'd been a reporter before he'd joined the army, "The plane in question appears to be a Messerschmitt…"

"Hey, we should probably get that dude outa there just in case that fuel tank blows." Private Dode pointed to the pilot still lying unconscious on the ground. He just wanted an excuse to get closer to the plane.

"This is Chuck Charles and I am now rescuing an enemy pilot," Chuck reported, grabbing one of the unconscious man's arms, Dode taking the other. "And he's not very light." He added with a groan as they dragged the pilot further back into the woods away from the plane.

"Hey, dude, look at that thing he's got instead of an eye." Dode spoke noticing the contraption of red glass and steel that covered one of the pilot's eyes and a good portion of his face. Curiosity getting the better of him, as usual, he extended a not at all tentative hand and gave the mechanism a poke. No sooner had his finger touched the metal there was a mechanical whirring sound and the eyepiece lit up a kind of ominous red. Chuck Charles took a step back and when Dode didn't do the same pulled him back too. The other eye opened and the pilot sat up, the eyepiece moving slightly like it was adjusting itself.

"The Zoo, where is it?" He demanded. The two looked at each other.

"This is Chuck Charles, and I have no idea what he's talking about."

"You said it, Chuck." Dode concurred. The pilot glared at the two of them.

"Where am I, then?" He demanded.

"New Hoboken Camp." Dode replied, "'s a POW camp."

"Ah, good." The pilot replied. Chuck Charles looked a bit confused, then shrugged.

"Well, it certainly makes our job easier… Breaking news: Luftwaffe pilot with freakish eye is glad to be…"

"My eye is not freakish, it's a marvel of science." Blowhole cut him off sharply, "And you are talking to Dr Blowhole, not just some pilot, perhaps you have heard of me?"

"Can't say I have." Dode replied. Blowhole scowled. "Still, it's nice that you're thinkin' of us and all…"

"When I said this was good I was referring to the fact that I must be close to the Zoo." Blowhole growled. "And Smith."

"No zoos in this part of the country."

"Yes, but I'm in England so I must be close," Blowhole countered, "You're never too far from anything in England, the island's too small."

"Now wait a minute, England isn't…" Dode protested, but Blowhole had already moved on. He stumbled to his feet, wincing as his left leg, which was covered in blood, took some of his weight.

"Hey, that leg doesn't look all that good." Dode commented. He'd considered unslinging his gun from his shoulder and pointing it more in the direction of the pilot, but with all his talk about zoos and that leg it didn't look like he was going anywhere. "Y' want Chuck to…"

"Shut up, I'm a doctor, I know how bad it is." Blowhole snapped, consulting his compass then taking a pained step towards the woods.

"…This is Chuck Charles and the enemy pilot with the freakish eye who is on the verge of bleeding out controversially refuses medical treatment…"

"Stop narrating, I can't hear myself think!" Blowhole took another step forward wincing painfully and only barely staying up right by briefly grabbing a tree.

"Uh, I know you're feelin' kinda grouchy today, but just sayin', the coast's the other way." Dode commented trying to keep a straight face whilst marvelling at the fact someone had finally gotten Chuck Charles to – even briefly – stop reporting.

"Do you think I would have crashed here if I wanted to be in France?" Chuck Charles and Dode looked at each other for the third time.

"Are you sure you don't want…?"

"I'm fine." Blowhole snapped and this was immediately followed by the thump of his unconscious body hitting the ground.

* * *

"He does sound like a very stubborn character from the way you describe it." The doctor commented, examining his new patient.

"Stubborn's waterin' it down, doc." Dode's replied, "Why does he keep muttering about zoos..."

"Perhaps it was some past childhood trauma…?" Suddenly, much to the surprise of the doctor, Dode and Chuck Charles, Blowhole suddenly sprung from the bed, a desperate, flailing sweep of his arm catching the doctor in the side and shoving him back. His human eye was more than slightly wild and his mechanical one unfocused as he stumbled out of the camp hospital into the centre of the camp. For a second he paused, then identified the gates. He forced his wounded leg into action ignoring as several stitches broke and the bandage began to rapidly stain red with blood. Several prisoners and guards looked at him in astonishment and one or two attempted to stop him but ultimately failed as he set himself on a collision course with the fence.

"Halt, immediately, or we'll shoot!" One of the sentries barked but Blowhole kept advancing.

"Don't shoot!" the doctor yelled from the steps of the hospital.

"Yeah, he's a little cranky but he's perfectly harmless." Dode shouted.

"He's not entirely in his right mind." The doctor concurred.

"This is Chuck Charles, and the enemy pilot with the freakish eye now known to be infamous Dr Blowhole continues to advance, seemingly oblivious of the guards' rifles, further reinforcing the doctor's opinion of Dr Blowhole's sanity." But Blowhole's movements were beginning to slow.

"Smith!" He yelled, grabbing the gates, seemingly surprised when they didn't just open for him, "I want you out here immediately! I want to see Smith; bring Corporal Smith out here or I'll see you shot!" But soon enough his eyes lost focus and he collapsed in the mud once again.

* * *

Slowly Blowhole opened one eye, then another. He noted that this time he was handcuffed to a chair. He barely remembered what had happened since the crash: he simply remembered that there had been a crash after which two particularly annoying idiots had thrown he, Dr Blowhole, one of the most feared and infamous POW camp commandants, into a prisoner of war camp. Actually, he did remember a fair bit. There was someone standing in front of him now, a vague fuzzy shape that was starting to get a bit closer. Click! Suddenly the world flooded with blinding white light.

"Doctor Blowhole, the man who managed to keep Skipper in one place for a whole year." A British accented voice spoke, "You're a long way from home."

"Who are you?" Blowhole demanded at the light.

"Agent Nigel." Nigel replied, keeping it simple and cutting the titles and ranks, "I think you've met my nephew, Private, or Pierre?" There was a darker note to the last sentence that warned Blowhole Nigel already had a very strong opinion of him which wasn't going to work in his favour.

"I knew that wasn't that boy's real uniform." Blowhole muttered.

"Let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?" Nigel continued, "What on earth are you doing ranting about zoos?"

"Oh, I wasn't ranting and you know that, well, not all the time," Blowhole countered, "I think I'm at the zoo now, aren't I? Penguin's English base of operations. You are aware Skipper talks in his sleep?" Nigel was tempted to ask what Blowhole was doing watching Skipper sleep, but decided it was off topic, "And I want to see Skipper immediately and I want him to tell me where Corporal Smith is."

"You're not in command here, Dr Blowhole." Nigel countered, "And anyway, Skipper isn't here... we haven't heard from him in a while." It was clear Nigel hadn't meant to say that part aloud, but something was worrying him, "Now what are you doing here? There are ways of making you tell us, and though I do dislike the messy methods, sometimes they are…"

"It's a personal matter." Blowhole interupted, "I've come here because I want a divorce and to file a breach of promise suit, of sorts – well, that should get his attention."

"You aren't married."

"They're birthday presents for my sister." Blowhole corrected, "Surely its grounds for divorce when a husband forces his wife to aid in the capture and torture of old friends?" The bright light switched off and when Blowhole's eyes adjusted he could see an aristocratic looking man in his early forties looking down on him from where he was perched on the corner of the desk behind the light.

"Well, I'm afraid those are things your sister will have to deal with herself and she'll need a lawyer, not a spy." Nigel replied, "But I'm interested to know what you wanted with Dr Kowalski?"

"I don't want Dr Kowalski, I don't want another doctor, I want Corporal Smith!" Blowhole snapped.

"Smith is Kowalski."

"Oh," Blowhole paused, "I always did detect a bit of the scientist in him."

"'A bit of the scientist in him'," A more than familiar voice near the back of the room spoke, "You are talking about one of the most prominent physicists in the world." A comment like that could only be one person.

"Ah, Sm… Kowalski," Blowhole's mechanical eye (his other one was still adjusting from the light) focused on the man near the back of the room, a tall, slightly skinny man wearing a lab coat that looked like he'd spilled half the chemicals known to man on it, "Thank you, Nigel, that will be all. Kowalski, you promised to marry my sister and I'm going to see that you keep that promise."

"I'd love to marry her," Kowalski replied sadly, "But I can't find her…"

"Well I can," Blowhole corrected, "I think Nigel here can arrange to have us parachuted back into continental Europe, you can finish off that husband of hers –"

"Wait, he isn't dead?"

"Of course not, so this time do it properly – then drop me off at my camp and go marry her and we should all be happy." Nigel's look made it clear this was _not_ going to happen.


	2. A Boring Assignment

**This is a bit of a long chapter but I couldn't think of a very good way to split it up. I'm trying to use some of the less frequently used ****POM ****characters in this story and this chapter should become more relevant later on.**

"…Now, y'see, I'd do it differently. I'd put the panzers here, here and here." The officer pointed to the hypothetical situation hastily drawn on a napkin, "That way you've blocked off all possible escape."

"What about the main road, captain?" An older man peering at the napkin, his hairpiece more than slightly dislodged though nobody dared tell him this, replied.

"That's why you've got the infantry there."

"Skipper." Marlene whispered, tugging at his sleeve, "We have a job to do." With her other hand she was grabbing a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. She needed something to do to keep her nerves steady. It wasn't being in a room full of some of the area's highest ranked officers that made her hand shake, she and Skipper did that all the time. In fact, Skipper had made a bit of a specialty of impersonating officers (and blowing up bridges) despite the fact he'd only just mastered high school level German. But he had the accent.

"Yes, Arlene, you can dance with the lieutenant," Skipper replied distractedly, "but I'm..." He searched for the word.

"Busy." She filled in, "But I want to dance with _you_." She insisted. Skipper rolled his eyes, then looked apologetically at the older and certainly higher ranked officer he was addressing. "I'm sorry, where were we?"

"It's perfectly alright, Captain." The older man replied, "You go and dance with your girl, after, of course, if you wouldn't mind, I've had the honour." Marlene was mouthing about as overtly as she could get away with that she had absolutely no desire to dance with him, but Skipper just smiled.

"Knock yourself out." With a final scowl from Marlene the two parted ways. The last he heard of the pair was, "Please, call me Purvis." To which Marlene almost replied, "I'd rather not."

Marlene had never danced with someone so boring or who stepped on her toes as much, but you never knew with these undercover people. Skipper was right, McSlade was a possibility. Might as well make the most of it then hope for the number to end.

"My purse!" She exclaimed for what felt like the hundredth time. It was starting to get monotonous.

"Here, I'll get that." McSlade replied, picking up the small clutch purse and putting some of the contents that had spilled out back inside.

"Thank you." Marlene replied, and gave the contents a quick glance through. No, it wasn't him. Well, now she could get out of here. "Oh." She moaned clutching her head, "Will you excuse me…"

"Pervis."

"Will you excuse me, Pervis? I'm feeling a little faint." Now that just sounded Victorian, but then seemingly so was McSlade. She made her way towards the other side of the room. Noting that Purvis was still following her, she walked past a group of attractive girls and out onto the balcony. She was almost alone aside from one other shadowy figure in the far corner looking over the edge at some of the later arriving guests.

"Enjoy dancing with McSlade?" Skipper asked, thankfully switching to English.

"What do you think?" She scoffed, "You owe me a dance, mister, assignment or not. It wasn't him, by the way."

"I had to try." Skipper answered. "Boy, did we get stuck with a dull assignment."

"Dull?" Marlene countered, "I can barely keep my hands from shaking." Skipper apparently didn't think much of this. Typical of him, "The most important piece of information we've ever had to pass on and you're treating it like you're here to have fun and talk strategy. And we don't even know who the contact is; all we know is that we've gotta make my powder compact particularly conspicuous and then this mysterious contact will make it disappear. Now what are you up to?"

"Classified."

"We're both on the same job, you can't say that. Come back in, we've got more suspects to drop purses in front of."

"You go out first. I'll catch up with you in a few seconds." Marlene shrugged and left, walking back out into the centre of the party. As far as their orders were concerned their contact could be anyone, but to save time Marlene was choosing the more likely suspects first. In fact, she spotted another one fairly quickly.

"Hi." Marlene greeted walking up to the man and placing her bag on the table, allowing the contact to spill out of the top slightly, "So you're Gil Force."

"Yes I am." Gil replied, seeming surprised at Marlene's quick introduction.

"I'm Arlene." Marlene replied, "You know, I've always wondered what it's like to be a meteorologist. It sounds so important. I mean, all those pilots couldn't fly without you." More like without him they would be able to fly. In the past couple of months, Gil Force had suddenly published several bad weather reports and had actually sent a bomber flying into a lightning storm. It was a wonder how he kept his job.

"Well, I suppose, yes…" Gil blushed. Marlene drummed her fingers on the table, drawing attention to the purse. Now her question was whether he was just suddenly a bad weather man, or if he was purposely, in his own way, sabotaging the planes.

Gil glanced at the bag and seemed to think nothing of it. Marlene gave him another minute to steal it but all he did was start boring her. Maybe Skipper was right, this was a pretty boring assignment. She made her excuses and moved back into the crowd.

"Hey, Doll-face." Skipper spoke getting her attention. "How about that one over there?" Skipper drew her attention to a man standing in the corner, observing the party, but in his eyes there was a kind of contempt for the gathering.

"Who's he?" Marlene asked. "He looks familiar."

"The Falcon." Skipper replied. Marlene nodded, "one of the most famous air aces you'll ever meet. I ended up in the same part of the sky as him once; I've never seen flying like his." He added.

"He doesn't look like the friendliest person." Marlene commented.

"Yeah, that's why I think it might be him. If anyone's disillusioned with his side it's the Falcon. He was never known as the most obedient guy, he's a bit like Rico: if he wants to do something he'll do it. Well, you know how Hans always hated disobedience."

"You two sound like you'd get on wonderfully. You could both go find him and kill him again together."

"Yeah, well, he flew out one night when he wasn't supposed to, and that time he didn't pull it off. The next day his fiancée had disappeared never to be seen again. Now here's the tricky part, we've gotta start a conversation with him…"

"Oh, don't bother, I'll just drop my purse again." Marlene sighed and strode off into the crowd walking directly over to the air ace who immediately eyed her with dislike, daring her to speak. Marlene completely ignored him, going for the mirror on the wall a few feet away and checking her hair and lipstick. Naturally, within a few seconds of starting this, she dropped her bag, the contents rolling out across the floor. The Falcon glared at her as if this was some kind of personal insult and quickly helped her gather up her belongings and put them back in the purse to get her away faster. The compact was still there. "No luck." Marlene reported, "Got any other disillusioned friends?"

"Not yet, just a double agent." Skipper answered pointing out another man in the crowd. He'd clearly been busy while Marlene was having her toes stepped on. "His name's Dale, he used to work under my old lieutenant. He defected, supposedly, a couple of years ago after a lab accident with a handful of out of date inventions and some of Kowalski's more dramatic failures and has been sending us nice little packets of real information since." Marlene started through the crowd to drop her purse again. There was no mirror around so Skipper followed her. Dale was a short little man with a limp who unlike the Falcon was engaged in discussion with several people who looked either extremely bored or offended. They were glad when Skipper came along to distract Dale long enough to allow them to escape, "Haven't I seen you before?" Skipper greeted.

"I don't think so." Dale replied.

"Strange, you seen very familiar." Skipper shrugged, "Well, who do I have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of?" Marlene stifled a scoff. There were still some social situations, often formal ones, he couldn't deal with in a way that didn't make him look like an obvious New Yorker and so was forced to imitate either Hans or Blowhole. In the end she decided to drop her purse early. Dale didn't seem particularly inclined to help her pick up the pieces so Marlene made it easy for him by picking up the contents and putting them on a nearby table, then picking up the bag and finally replacing the items. All were present. "Marlene, is that… Excuse me a moment." Skipper and Marlene returned to the crowd. "I've only got one one left, he's a guy that embezzled a whole bunch of supplies and was selling them on the black market for a pretty good profit. He thinks the secret's out, but we don't know if it's _actually_ been discovered." Skipper pointed to a tall, skinny officer not far from them with skin turned bright pink with sunburn.

"Who, Pinky?" Marlene laughed, "I never would have guessed he was a crook." This time, Pinky spotted her before she could speak.

"Fraulein Marlene!" He greeted drunkenly.

"I'm afraid you have me confused with my third cousin, I'm Arlene." Marlene replied. He leaned closer to Skipper.

"Watch this one, they say her third cousin almost succeeded in smuggling six American airmen out of town in the cabaret she worked in." he whispered.

"Six American airmen? Impossible. I heard it was ten." Pinky shrugged. Skipper knew, including him and a couple of other guys they'd picked up along the way, it was twelve. "Arlene's nothing like this Marlene, believe me, though she can certainly sing like her sister can…"

"My purse!" This was starting to get old, but she couldn't think what else she could say. She bent down to gather up the contents.

"Y'wanna help her?" Skipper asked making it clear he didn't like the way Pinkey was looking at his girl. When both of them stood up everything was in the bag. After a drink or two Skipper and Marlene made their excuses.

"Is that…?" Marlene suddenly asked, pointing out the familiar blond. Skipper frowned.

"Yes that is."

"Do you suppose she's the contact…?" Skipper shrugged as if to say it was worth a try.

"Kowalski will kill me if I don't at least try to talk her into going to England." Skipper replied and made his way across the room to the pale blond standing by the door. "Doris?" He greeted and the girl turned around, recognizing him immediately. She glanced at his uniform.

"Captain…?"

"Captain Knife." Skipper finished for her.

"Ah yes, Captain Knife, how could I ever forget you?" She replied. "You know, I came here because I heard you'd be here."

"You aren't interested in Marlene's purse, are you?" Skipper asked. Doris shook her head.

"I'm afraid I'm out of the loop on that one." She glanced behind Skipper, surveying the room, "I don't want to talk about it out here. Can we step outside?"

"Sure." Skipper replied and Doris led the way out the door and down the stairs to the first floor of the old chateau. "Y'know, before I left, Kowalski made me promise if I bumped into you I'd tell you he misses you." It might have been Skipper's imagination but he thought he saw Doris blink back a tear.

"I'm sure he did." She replied quietly. She motioned to a door not quite as heavily gilded as some of the others, "In here." She said, stepping into the room and turning on the lights. She shut the door behind her.

"So what was it you wanted to tell us?" Marlene asked, sitting down on one of the sofas near an ornate window she pushed open for some fresh air, "Sorry, my feet hurt from having my toes stepped on."

"Pervis." Doris chuckled quietly. She picked up a small antique pocket watch from the table, briefly admiring it.

"I don't wanna rush you," Skipper added, "But we haven't exactly got all the time in the world for small talk…" Skipper was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Come in." Doris called back. The door opened and immediately Skipper's hand went to his sidearm but he was already covered.

"Here I was waiting for this social event to end when I found out you're here." The newcomer, followed by two men in dress uniforms (though Skipper was fairly certain they weren't soldiers) spoke. "It was really only a matter of time before I bumped into the one who got away."

"Hans." Skipper scowled. His eyes darted over to Marlene and they had a whole conversation in a matter of a few looks. Marlene almost vocally protested once, but then remained quiet.

"Now if you would give me the compact…?" Marlene nodded quietly, standing up from the sofa and opening her purse. It was clear Hans already knew the small berretta she carried was strapped to her thigh and not somewhere as obvious as the purse she'd been dropping all evening. She extended the small metal object shakily. Suddenly her hand changed direction entirely and what was supposedly the compact flew out the window. Skipper, however, saw an eighteenth century pocket watch go flying and the compact slip into one of the drawers in the desk behind her. At least the compact was safe.

Hans shouted not to open fire, which Skipper knew was worse because it meant they were in for far slower deaths, instead ordering on of the two subordinates outside to grab the compact.

"That wasn't a particularly smart idea." Hans spoke and Marlene cringed. She knew all about Hans and what he'd done to Skipper in Denmark, "I think I miss your old partner, the one that didn't have the guts to kill me. However, I think that you and Skippar know exactly what was in that contact, so it's just going to be a bit more tedious, and I'll only need one of you alive." As Hans was occupied with being annoyed at Marlene Skipper had moved slowly closer to her.

"Run!" Skipper suddenly yelled and pushed her backwards out the window. Doris stifled a scream and three gunshots rang out and Skipper went down.


	3. Bad News

"It makes me feel a little better about Denmark knowing that, despite the fact you escaped, I did a good enough job that you'd rather be dead than caught again." Hans spoke, "It was rather selfish of you, though, really, using her to try to take the easy way out. You didn't think I'd actually kill you, though?" Skipper didn't say anything. "I suppose you were willing to try on the off chance. Now all you have is a wounded leg."

Skipper continued to remained perfectly silent. Marlene had gotten away and that was all that mattered. That, and that Hans hadn't found the compact. Skipper had told him that a resistance member waiting outside had grabbed it when Marlene had thrown it out the window. He seemed to believe it and hadn't searched the room. "You know, I prefer these little bits of talking I throw in in between some of the more technical stuff. It's when you really see a person weaken." Skipper knew Hans was playing on fear, and he was right, he was good at his job. He studied his opponents carefully and he had one sick imagination. Skipper was tough, but one thing he had plenty of was fear. He hadn't been tough back on that mission in Denmark, he'd been just a rookie watching as his idol broke down in front of him and wondering how long he had left. And it was the bits he didn't remember that really terrified him.

"We've done this before, Hans." Skipper countered confidently, "I'm the one that got away. You can't break me."

"But I did break you." Hans corrected. His escape was one of those terrifying parts he couldn't remember; he hadn't been able to remember exactly how he'd escaped, but he'd always told himself it had been him. It had been a point of pride. But it was just as possible, even more possible, that it hadn't been, "It was only luck you escaped, and partially my fault, I was impatient and overconfident." It went without saying that those were faults Hans had corrected. "There's still something broken inside you, I can see, so this shouldn't take too long." Hans would get nothing out of him. Nothing. What was hidden in that compact was something that he couldn't afford to give up no matter what. "It's actually quite nostalgic for me, as well as more convenient than before: I'm on my home turf with all my tools and three nicely soundproofed walls - feel free to scream as loud as you want when we start up again."

"Three?" Skipper asked, what he still had of his blood turning to ice. It was when Hans said cryptic things like that that things were about to get really bad.

"Oh yes, she can hear you." Hans knocked twice on the door of the small cell-like room, "Would you bring her in?" he called to someone outside the room. "It wasn't your imagination, you really were hearing her voice."

"If you've done anything to Marlene…" Skipper growled.

"I haven't touched her." Hans shrugged, "I didn't particularly intend to either, I don't like to hurt women and children, but you know me, my work always goes first." Hans didn't sound like he meant a word of it. Skipper figured if they ever got the technology Hans could be replaced with a robot and not even Doris would notice.

The door opened and Marlene was dragged in, fighting viciously, full of spirit and determined to be heroic. Hans eyes said it all: she wasn't going to be like that for long. Suddenly she spotted Skipper and like Hans predicted, some of that fight seemed to die. Some of Skipper's did too.

"I'll go easy on her at first." He spoke, motioning to the guard to hand him a small leather bag after Marlene had been restrained and rooting about inside, keeping his back to Skipper so he couldn't see what he was doing but Marlene could. Skipper didn't need to read the look on Marlene's face to know this wasn't going to be good, "I don't want to make a mistake like I did with that traitorous general – I got carried away and his heart gave out. It might take a little longer, but I'm patient." Marlene's terrified eyes locked on his. Skipper opened his mouth to speak, but Marlene shook her head firmly. She was right, he couldn't talk, no matter what. Suddenly she screamed, and Skipper had no choice but to watch.

* * *

"Skipper, I'm starting to get really bored now. It's been a few days and your leg needs proper medical attention. " Hans sighed, "I'm afraid patching things up isn't my specialty." He turned to the other captive, "Marlene, do you want to see him bleed out? Or gangrene?" Marlene said nothing as did Skipper. "Look, you're just wasting our time, you're human, you aren't going to hold out forever…" Hans was interrupted by a knock at the door. Skipper caught something about a phone call. "Tell whoever it is I'm out." Hans replied.

"It's urgent…" Skipper picked up along with the name of a person he didn't recognise. Hans rolled his eyes and stood up, heading towards the door.

"Don't let anyone in there." Hans ordered as he left, "I might be gone a while, I want to keep them completely cut off, understand?"

Skipper didn't know how long had passed since Hans had left but he heard a low but familiar murmur outside the door that finished with something about Hans' orders. The door opened and Doris of all people walked in. She stumbled slightly as she entered her eyes widening as she saw the two and slammed the door shut behind her. Clearly, she'd had a very sheltered view of the war. After this initial reaction she just seemed to stand there, her eyes slightly downcast like they'd been at the party.

"Proud of yourself?" Marlene asked accusingly, mustering her strength to shoot the girl a glare. That was too much for Doris, though she did her best to hide her sniffles with her handkerchief.

"I'm sorry, I didn't…" She began but she knew she'd known, on some level. Marlene looked like she wanted to tear her to pieces, but Skipper knew her a little better and for once found himself taking the more sympathetic position. Doris had always been kept in her own little sheltered world by her brother then by Hans. Now that was over.

"Why?" Skipper asked. That was the bit he didn't really understand. Doris gulped back a sob then slid into the empty chair. While before that position had held the power of life and death, Doris now looked like the one under interrogation.

"I'll bet it was for that fur coat." Marlene muttered. "That's why she went back to him."

"No, no, it wasn't!" Doris countered, removing the coat like it was on fire, "I… I regret it now, I really do, but I can't get out now, I can't escape any more than you two can."

"I wouldn't compare you to us, honey."

"I know, I didn't say that right." Doris stifled another sob, "After I ran away, it wasn't as easy as I thought it was going be. I had no money and nowhere to go and I thought he was dead and that someone might think I'd killed him… Then I found out he was alive, and I thought it was best to just get it over with and turn myself in because he'd find me anyway." Marlene went to say something along the lines of her being a coward and other harsher things, but Skipper interrupted her.

"And?"

"He said he forgave me, that I'd just gotten carried away and I didn't know what I was doing. Everything went back to normal and I thought he loved me again." She twisted her handkerchief into an angry knot, "Now I realize he was only using me to capture you two. Now he has you, he treats me like I'm nothing."

"Well, you really don't want to him to treat you like something." Skipper replied. Marlene muttered something about Skipper being ever the unsinkable cork. Skipper knew he was half sunk, but he couldn't show Doris that. Now came the real pitch, "Look, he's out now and you obviously have the run of the place. Let the two of us go, or at least Marlene, say you're transferring us or something. You don't have to stay with him."

"Yes I do." She countered. "I can't let you go. I'm really sorry."

"Why are you still loyal to him?" Marlene demanded. Doris seemed to shrink several inches shorter.

"He's my husband." She replied quietly.

"Give me a gun and thirty seconds and he won't be anymore."

"Why don't you do it for Kowalski?" Skipper asked. Suddenly tears began to form all over again, and even under a warning glare from Marlene she couldn't keep it together. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small newspaper clipping she apparently carried everywhere with her. It was slightly smudged with what looked like tears. 'Lab Accident Claims The Lives Of Noted Physicist and German POW' the clipping from an English newspaper read.

"Oh, an obvious forgery…" Marlene began but Doris shook her head.

"No, I got it from an old friend in the resistance." She glanced at her watch and stood up, dabbing at her eyes. "I have to go." Like that she left, shutting the door behind her.

"Women." Skipper muttered, "You're right Marlene, she's a spoiled brat, she doesn't even want to know what's going on."

"No," Marlene countered thoughtfully, "He's all she has left now. She's latched on to the only person she thinks cares for her on some level. More likely her memories of him being the good guy, maybe she thinks part of that was real."

"Oh don't you get mushy on me too!"


	4. Good News

"The explosion seems to have originated here, sir." Maurice reported, motioning to a section of scorched rubble that had once been Kowalski's lab. He was trying to keep it together and stay professional, but it wasn't easy. Despite the amount of times Kowalski had threatened to use him for a guinea pig or to test his new method of self-defence with clipboards on him (and sometimes did), he was going to miss the guy.

"What do you think caused it?" Nigel asked.

"Probably two chemicals that if he'd believed in safety rules should have been kept locked in separate rooms got mixed together." Maurice replied.

"Kowalski was never clumsy, not with things like that."

"My guess was Blowhole picked up the chemicals and said 'what does this do'? Or if I can't escape neither can you or something equally dramatic and stupid." Maurice replied grimly, trying not to show how bad he was taking it, but there was still something nagging at the back of his mind, "I've still got no idea what possessed Kowalski to take Blowhole out of New Hoboken."

"I gave up trying to guess what went on in that man's mind a long time ago." Nigel concurred, but there was an element of doubt to his expression as he surveyed the scene, "Go on."

"Well, pretty much everything in the immediate vicinity was vaporised, them including. The rest of the building was blown to pieces, thankfully nobody else was inside, then of course we got here when we saw the flames." Suddenly Nigel bent down and picked something off the ground, badly charred but still recognisable as Kowalski's clipboard, which had mostly isurvived the explosion.

"Thank you, Sergeant." Nigel replied thoughtfully, "Shame about what happened, he had a damned good brain."

* * *

"So you say you still think you can get us to France?" Blowhole asked, "We aren't swimming, are we? I didn't bring my waterproof eye."

"No, I think I can get us an airplane." Kowalski replied. "You're going to lie low at my lab till I've got it, then a friend will fly us over and we'll parachute out." This seemed to be a decent enough plan for Blowhole, "And if you're gone when I get back I'll tell Nigel and you won't make it two miles."

"I've already flown over here, now is really too late to change my mind."

Kowalski opened the door revealing a lab that made Blowhole's eye look like it was going to short circuit.

"Nice, isn't it." Kowalski replied. "Nigel's great; you name it, he gets it for you. You should consider coming back here after we've finished this. Maybe I can get New Hoboken to rent you to me as a lab assistant. You'll work your way up."

"I've seen better." Blowhole countered, but by the way he was staring at it, it was clear he hadn't.

"No you haven't." Kowalski smirked. He switched on the lights and started a tour of the lab. Revenge certainly was sweet. Still, Kowalski didn't get long to enjoy it as the phone in the corridor started ringing. Kowalski answered it, hoping it wasn't Nigel.

"Yo, 'Walski." Bada's voice boomed over the telephone. "We was prisoners together so I think I kinda owe you one, but this is gonna be it."

"Yeah, we ain't getting involved in this and what not." Added Bing. "We never made this call."

"'Ey, get your own phone, I'm talkin' here!" Bada snapped, "Anyway, Nigel knows the one eye'd creep's missin' and you're missin' an' he's startin' to put two and two together, see? He's headin' over to your lab right now." The phone hung up with a click.

"Well that's not good." Blowhole concluded.

"Right," Kowalski started to write frantically on his clipboard. "No, no, that wouldn't work… No, not that, either…"

"I think I know a way out." Blowhole spoke.

"Be quiet, I'm thinking. I don't trust your options."

"Before Nigel drags us both in, do you want to see an experiment I had been conducting just before you escaped?" Kowalski paused. "It was the one you were always trying to get into the lab to find out about, but you never could." Kowalski was clearly curious.

"Well, go ahead, while I think." He replied. Blowhole immediately selected several chemicals, occasionally asking Kowalski for their locations. He mixed a few together in one beaker, then grabbed a mechanical device from a pile in the corner and attached a vial of another chemical to it. He did a few other things Kowalski wasn't paying much attention to. He couldn't escape no matter what he did and Blowhole had no personal grudge against him, so Kowalski felt perfectly safe.

Kowalski looked up when he heard a soft but unfortunately familiar click.

"Great science, what have you…!"

"Is there anyone else in the building?" Blowhole asked.

"No, but please tell me that isn't…!" Blowhole's smug smile said it was. Kowalski dived forward attempting to prevent the bomb from going off, but Blowhole dragged him back towards the door.

"You can't stop it." Blowhole spoke and Kowalski unfortunately saw the logic in this and joined Blowhole in running for his life. They were almost at the door when Blowhole suddenly snatched Kowalski's clipboard, throwing it back into the building.

"What…?!" But it was too late. Kowalski was only barely thrown behind a log in time before flames and debris were suddenly falling everywhere, "That was my clipboard." Kowalski mourned when his ears were no longer ringing.

"That's why they'll believe the two of us were caught in that explosion." Blowhole replied, "And so won't attempt to prevent us from leaving the country."

"Oh." Kowalski muttered, clearly still mourning the loss of the clipboard.

"We should get out of here."

"No." Kowalski paused, "They'll be combing the surrounding woods for saboteurs, and it'll be easier to get to my friend if we stay around here." Kowalski looked along the edge of the woods selecting a small space between two logs that made an excellent hiding place, right at the edge of the trees, so close nobody would think a saboteur would be crazy enough to hide there, "It might be a bit of a wait knowing Nigel and how closely we worked together..."

* * *

""A damned good brain"?" Kowalski exclaimed in outrage, before remembering to whisper. Thankfully, nobody seemed to have heard him, "That's all he can say about me? "a damned good brain? I'm more than a damned good brain, I'm the most brilliant physicist in…"

"Second only to me, of course." Kowalski scowled at him.

"No, you're second to me." That argument could have gone on for quite some time but Kowalski noticed Nigel had apparently finished with the scene and was leaving with the rest of the investigators. However, as Nigel walked towards the woods Maurice turned in the opposite direction, walking directly towards them. He stopped directly in front of the log as if pausing to examine the woods then looked down directly at the two hiding scientists.

"I thought I wasn't hearin' ghosts." Maurice spoke, apparently having already gotten over the surprise of them being there. The nonchalance didn't hold up for long, though, "Don't do things like that without tellin' me!"

"It was his idea." Kowalski pointed at Blowhole.

"Still, once I'd gotten over the initial shock of watchin' your lab go kaboom and pickin' up the pieces I figured since you'd stopped by askin' me about gettin' a plane off the books, this probably wasn't all it looked like."

"Can we still have the plane?" Blowhole asked. Maurice looked at Blowhole with the kind of contempt that came with having watched Manfredi and Johnson dragged off in agony.

"Yeah, sure." Maurice sighed, "I'll give you the one Kowalski and the kid flew across in, it'll save you gettin' shot down on your side and I'll pass the word to leave you guys alone on my side." Once again his attention moved to Blowhole, "Do I even want to know what you two are up to?"

"Probably not," Kowalski replied, "I think you can guess, though." Maurice rolled his eyes, knowing full well the motive started with a D and was an attractive blond.

"Be at the hanger at 0100, and whatever you do, don't get spotted. You'll have them thinkin' the camp's haunted again."

"Well, at least then I'll find out how many people have done something to me they'd think I'd haunt them for. Do you have any coffee?"

"Take the mess kit." Maurice sighed, tossing him the equipment, "Stay put until one, you can boil your coffee on the smouldering embers of your lab."[ss3] Maurice heard Nigel call his name and yelled back, "I'm almost done!" Nigel shouted something back about them already being done - to which Kowalski grumbled something about the kind of gratitude you were supposed to get after you'd died in a fiery inferno – and Maurice hurried off after his superior.

"How far do you think the news has travelled?" Blowhole asked after an excruciatingly dull fifteen minutes.

"I don't know." Kowalski replied, "I suppose Nigel will keep it quiet until he's written up the reports and such, about a day, then he'll turn it over to the press. Knowing my reputation, all of Europe might know by tomorrow's evening edition."

"But, people not associated with Nigel or the New Hoboken base, the people in the village, shall we say, they would be unaware of our demise?" Kowalski shrugged.

"Yeah, I guess so." Blowhole stood up, dusting the leaves off his charred and bled on uniform. "Where are you going?"

"In to town to eat, I'm hungry." He replied, "I assume you can get me some civilian clothing?"

"No." Kowalski refused, "Chuck Charles has probably already spread the word about "the enemy pilot with the freakish eye" in Inverness."

"Then you can get me a normal eye patch and nobody will recognise me without." Blowhole replied, "Which way are your quarters?"

"You blew them up." Kowalski muttered, following Blowhole, "But Bada and Bing can get their hands on just about anything and they don't ask questions. Not even of ghosts. Despite what they said they'll help me for the right price."

"Good, we'll stop at Bada and Bing's, go into town, get some lunch, procure some equipment and by then the plane will be ready and…" Kowalski stopped dead in his tracks.

"My clipboard."

"Yes, Nigel took it with him." Blowhole kept walking.

"I'm not leaving without it." Blowhole stopped.

"Of course you are."

"No. I'm not." Kowalski countered stubbornly, almost childishly. Blowhole sighed.


	5. How To Steal A Clipboard

At first it had only seemed like a simple detour. Blowhole would start a distraction, Kowalski would slip into Nigel's office and grab the clipboard. But naturally it wasn't. If Kowalski had gone in about five minutes earlier, it would have been, but he walked in five minutes too late.

"Have you got the clipboard so we can go?" Blowhole asked. Kowalski glanced awkwardly back at New Hoboken.

"Nigel hasn't got it anymore." Kowalski replied, "I didn't even get the chance to climb through the window, Nigel was in there with Private."

"Private?"

"Yes. He was in there pleading with Nigel for my clipboard as a reminder of me. Nigel gave it to him."

"Where did he put it?"

"He hasn't left yet; he's still thanking Nigel." As if the word "Nigel" were the boy's cue, Private walked out of the gates of the camp with Roger, strolling leisurely down the lane towards the village, completely unaware of his former roommate and former foe's predicaments. If he'd known, he probably would have apologised at once for having had any part in it.

"Right, I have a plan…"

"You messed up the last one, it's my turn." Kowalski interrupted, "I have an option with a high probability of success."

The two scientists followed Private stealthily through the woods until they came to the little village situated next to the camp which consisted of little more than a pub, a few shops, a post office and a railway station. A lone constable chatted with a resident and the whole place was stiflingly peaceful. It was really Private's kind of town. They entered one of the shops, though only a few minutes later the door of the small shop re-opened and Private and Roger left, moving towards the green grocers.

"Stay here." Kowalski ordered, brushing some of the dirt and leaves off a spare un-singed uniform Bada and Bing had procured and exiting the woods. He cut between two houses and walked briskly across the main street to the store. Immediately he walked up to a sturdy looking fishing rod on display with several other odds and ends, inspected it briefly to gauge weather it would do the job, and, satisfied, decided to buy it. He moved over to some of the other fishing supplies, trying to guess what kind of hook would best suit his unusual task.

"Good afternoon, lieutenant." A voice behind him greeted.

"Good afternoon, Mrs Gladys." He replied distractedly as if he wasn't dead.

"I hope you aren't planning on buying anymore cats," Mrs Gladys spoke firmly, "Because I'm going to have to refuse to sell them to you. Can you imagine my shock when I saw one of the little dears lying drowned on the river bank?"

"Plenty of cats are the victims of unfortunate accidents each year." Kowalski replied, barely giving her a quarter of his attention, but he couldn't outright ignore her if he wanted future test subjects, "In all probability it was washed down from..."

"No, its name tag was still on its collar, TS15, and I remember that was the little cat you bought from me last week; I remember thinking that TS15 was such a strange name for a cat…" Kowalski selected a fishing hook.

"Ah yes, Test Subject 15; well I'm afraid TS15 had to be sacrificed for the good of science, Mrs Gladys, it was a tragic accident." Mrs Gladys looked down at the fishing equipment he'd placed on the counter.

"Those poor fishes." She muttered.

"For the good of science is better than for the good of fish and chips, Mrs Gladys." Kowalski argued, "And you'll be glad to know I'm not going to want any more cats," Mrs Gladys smiled

"That'll be 7s 11d." He was going to make Blowhole reimburse him that since none of this would have happened if he hadn't blown up the lab. He could get a new lab but a new clip board just wouldn't be the same.

"Thank you, Mrs Gladys. I'm going to be away for a while, but in about three weeks I'm going to need some baby rabbits…" Mrs Gladys almost forgot to shut the till.

"Well, Lieutenant Kowalski…!" It never seemed to work whenever he tried to experiment with being humorous.

"K'walski!" A small voice from the doorway on the other side of the room exclaimed. Kowalski turned around to see Private staring at him as if he was looking at a ghost.

"I'm sorry young man, have we met before?" Kowalski asked. It was really the only thing for it. Private blinked.

"Uncle Nigel… He told me there was an explosion at the lab…"

"Yes, there was," Kowalski bowed his head respectfully, "That was my brother. We were both lieutenants with PhDs." He added quickly

"Oh." Private whispered. "I'm sorry. He was an old friend of mine."

"Yes, it was a tragic loss." Kowalski concurred, and it was then he had a stroke of genius, "I came down as soon as I'd heard… Well," He noticed Mrs Gladys was looking at him strangely, "I was in town to tell Mrs Gladys my brother wouldn't be needing any cats this week when I heard the news. I've been searching the town for his clipboard, it was missing."

"And so you went to buy fishing gear?" Roger asked sceptically.

"Yes, I was hoping it would make me feel better as I haven't had much luck finding the clipboard." More like he'd been buying the fishing rod to use to snag the clipboard from a safe distance and reel it in before Private realized it was gone.

"Well, I can help you with the clipboard." Private removed a newspaper wrapped package from his shopping bag, "My uncle found it for me at the site of the explosion."

"I don't suppose I could have it?" Kowalski asked, trying not to be too impatient, "I mean, he was my brother and it would mean a lot to me to have something to remember him by." Private's expression immediately became pained and he pulled the clipboard closer to him.

"If you don't mind…" He paused, "Me and your brother were rather close, at least I like to think - you never really could tell with him - but he smuggled me out of a rather tough situation and we did a whole bunch of completely crazy things together before that. If you don't mind, I'd like to keep it, for the memories… Please?"

* * *

"Did you get the clipboard?" Blowhole asked, devouring a sandwich he'd bought from the newsagent's. Kowalski was too intent on finding his clipboard to inquire as to the location/existence of his.

"No." Kowalski replied grimly.

"Why not?" Kowalski winced.

"It was those big blue eyes and that little tear he tried to hide." He looked awkwardly down at his hands, "I couldn't take it from him."

"Well, I have no such qualms, so I shall succeed where you failed. That is also why you are second to me in the world of science." Blowhole concluded, "You let sentimentality interfere with the experiment." Blowhole noticed Private dropping the groceries off in his car, then rushing over to the butchers at the last minute, "Do you know a shortcut? It can be to any stretch of fairly desolate road, as long as we can get there first. I'm also going to need a small rectangle of plywood about the dimensions of your clipboard and some newspaper." After Blowhole had found a book of a suitable size and bought a few newspapers, Kowalski led Blowhole through the woods till they arrived at a bend in the road with nothing around but grass and a small stream. "I'm going to need your pistol too, emptied." This time Kowalski wanted some answers before he complied, "It is quite simple: I'm going to stop the car and take the clipboard."

"Then why do you need the fake clipboard?" Kowalski asked.

"As a backup, in case things go wrong and I have to return the clipboard." He replied hurriedly. Naturally, that something that could go wrong would have nothing to do with Kowalski's earlier problem. Kowalski handed him the fake clipboard and the gun, even as they heard the sound of a car coming down the road. It was Private's car.

"Wait, won't he recognise you?" Kowalski asked.

"Nobody's recognised me without my mechanical eye," Blowhole countered, "I'm quite famous in this town with Chuck Charles; about and I even walked past him without being recognised."

Blowhole stepped out of the woods, walking towards the oncoming car which was driving down the country lane at a slow pace, just slightly below the speed limit. Suddenly his foot caught on a tree root. He stumbled once towards the car, but seemed to regain his balance. After that was a small indentation in the earth, and this time Blowhole didn't catch himself.

"Oh, my goodness, are you alright?" Private exclaimed, jumping out of the car and running over to Blowhole who was lying on the ground where the car had hit him.

"I'm fine." Blowhole grumbled, already attempting to sit up, rubbing his arm, "You barely grazed me."

"Oh, but I hit you! I'm terribly sorry!" Private apologized sincerely. "Lie down, you might have injured yourself and not realized it." He pushed Blowhole back down into his position lying on the road next to his car, "I've got a first aid kit in the car, and then I can call a constable on the car-phone Uncle Nigel had installed for me." Blowhole once again tried to get up, but it wasn't going to happen. And Kowalski's revolver had taken a worse hit than him and spun off somewhere further down the road. That plan wasn't going to work. "One moment, I seem to have misplaced my first aid kit…" Private began rooting about in his car, pulling out grocery bags and bags full of other stuff he'd bought in town.

It was then Blowhole spotted it: the bag Private had just pulled out and slung over his shoulder as he checked under the seat contained the clipboard. Blowhole realized he was still holding on to the fake clipboard. Immediately he saw his opportunity. Blowhole carefully extracted the clipboard from the bag as Private started checking the back seats then swiftly replaced it with the fake. Now they could get back to rescuing his sister.

"I've found it," Private announced triumphantly and threw the door joyously open further to aid him in replacing the bags, "it was in the glove compartment the whole…" Private turned around to see his charge lying out cold on the ground. He had wondered why the door had made that odd sound when he'd thrown it open.

Kowalski, watching from the woods saw the whole thing. Well, at least, he saw Blowhole attempt to switch the clipboards then get knocked out by the door. He had to get that clipboard. After a brief moment of calculation, Kowalski stepped out of the woods, walking over to the car.

"Private!" He exclaimed, "I was just out walking when I spotted you." He looked down at Blowhole as if he was surprised to see him there, "It looks like he's hurt."

"Yes, I'm afraid I hit him with my car." Private replied mournfully. His voice dropped several decibels, "Then I knocked him out with my car door."He sounded like he was on the verge of tears, "Do you suppose he'll forgive me?"

"Of course," Kowalski replied, picking up Blowhole and the parcel from the ground. Both Blowhole and the parcel were heavier than expected, "Could you point me to the nearest doctor's office?"

"Oh yes, it's back in the village, that way." Private turned away from Kowalski, pointing back towards the village. It was a bit of a magic trick to do with one hand, but Kowalski managed to swap the clipboards.


	6. Breaking and Entering

Kowalski splashed a second cup of cold river water on Blowhole's face and this time got results. Blowhole groaned and muttered something about it not being an inspection day before suddenly remembering that he had a job to do and his eye snapped open.

"Did you get the clipboard?" He asked. Kowalski glanced awkwardly at the partially unwrapped book a few feet away.

"No." He replied, then added defensively, "Why didn't you tell me you'd already swapped it?"

"Because I had been knocked unconscious." Blowhole replied, "And the least _you_ could have done was warn me about that door."

"I didn't even know Private could drive, never mind what kind of car he had and that you'd sit yourself right behind a door." Kowalski countered, "Why did you have to get yourself knocked unconscious?" Blowhole went to counter that if he could have avoided being knocked out he would have, but instead shook his head wearily.

"Look at us." He scoffed, "We're the most brilliant scientists on our respective sides, not that they know it yet, and we're wasting time arguing completely pointlessly over past events." Kowalski also seemed to see the childishness of their actions and they silently agreed to drop the argument. "Now where's my eye?" Kowalski provided him with the mechanical device he quickly reattached. Satisfied, Blowhole finally decided to take look around, for the first time realizing they were neither in the town nor still by the side of the road like he'd assumed, "Where are we?"

"About a mile outside town." Kowalski replied, then pointed at a small stone cottage through the woods. Since Blowhole had been knocked out it had gotten dark and the lights of the cottage were completely dark too, "that's Private's cottage. A few minutes ago the lights were switched off and I heard a car drive away. Now seems like the perfect time to grab the clipboard."

"It should be fairly straight forward." Blowhole concurred. It was, for once, since the cottage appeared to be an entirely normal cottage without even a deadbolt. There was only one poorly set up security system, high tech but poorly set up. Kowalski spotted the first electric eye when he was only half way across the drive and dodged it with ease.

The lock opened with a click and Blowhole and Kowalski stepped into the country cottage.

"I don't know whether to call it touching or disturbing." Blowhole grumbled, "He took it home with him! Evidence! And Nigel gave it to him to put on his mantel piece."

"Well, it's nice to know somebody mourns me." Kowalski whispered back, "And do you remember ever saying no to him?" Blowhole had to think about that one.

"No, I don't." Blowhole finally replied, "It was those big blue eyes. If he wasn't so much of a gentleman not to ask I might have been forced to let him escape."

"When I get my clipboard back I'll make a note of that." Kowalski switched on the flashlight Bada and Bing had provided them with, along with provisions and other supplies they'd need for their trip as well as German uniforms they'd somehow gotten their hands on. "Private is an instant 'get out of jail free' card."

They appeared to have entered through the back door into the kitchen of the little stone cottage. The clipboard clearly wasn't there. Fortunately, Private appeared to be just as much a compulsively tidy soul at home as well as overseas, that would likely make finding the clipboard all the easier.

Kowalski opened the door of the kitchen and stepped into a cosy living room with a rocking chair, a fishing trophy and little fire place with a few choice family pictures on the mantle and a little lunicorn figurine. It was just the kind of place Kowalski imagined Private living in. But the clipboard wasn't there.

"At least he didn't put it on his mantelpiece next to the collectable lunicorns." Blowhole commented.

"I think we should split up." Kowalski suggested, taking one last look around the sitting room, "We haven't got long before Maurice expects us at the hanger."

"Are you sure Private is out?" Blowhole asked warily.

"It's only nine o'clock and all the lights are out." Kowalski replied, "He's a teenage boy next to a zoo full of people who get up to all kinds of mischief – I used to share a barracks with some of them." Blowhole rolled his eyes remembering just how much mischief they could get up to, "You take the upstairs and the attic, I'll finish this floor and the lunicorn collections." Blowhole nodded and started up a set of creaking stairs to an upper level that was divided between a storage area and a bedroom. The cottage, whilst still retaining it's feeling of cosiness, was bigger than it looked on the outside.

Blowhole assumed that after petitioning his uncle for Kowalski's clipboard for half an hour straight Private would not automatically assign it to the storage area that had been the first door he opened, so opened the door of the bedroom. There Blowhole was met with his first surprise: Private wasn't out. Apparently, Private was a teenage boy who went to bed at eight o'clock and could resist taking part in the mischief of Kowalski's old barracks mates. From that he could deduce the car Kowalski had heard drive away had been Roger checking on Private. Blowhole was going to quietly shut the door again and go back down the stairs when saw the clipboard: Private was holding it like it was a teddy bear. The discoloured metal surface was also streaked with evidence of water droplets, whether that was from the afternoon's rain or if the boy had cried himself to sleep with it was an open question. Still, as adorable and childish as it was, there was definitely something disturbingly macabre about it.

Blowhole was caught at one of those indecisive moments in life: for obvious reasons he wasn't particularly partial to the idea of attempting to steal the object from the boy's own hands and this was a bit of an aukward situation, but on the other hand Kowalski (and by extension, and more importantly, Doris) wasn't going anywhere without it. And Private was sleeping like a baby. Blowhole made up his mind and stepped cautiously into the room, his eyes locked on his objective. Blowhole froze when the boy stirred slightly, but he'd simply turned over in his sleep. He started across the room again.

Suddenly the heap of blankets came to life, grabbing a gun from under the pillow and switching on the light.

"Keep your hands where I can see them, Blowhole." Private ordered sitting up in bed. He looked like a little copy of his uncle. Oddly enough, Lunicorn pyjamas could be intimidating in some situations. "Why are you here and what were you doing?"

"It's a little complicated…" He began. The boy's eyes narrowed.

"You have exactly ten seconds to tell me what you were doing or I swear I will…" Suddenly Private's big blue eyes widened, a grin grew on his face and he ran past Blowhole to the doorway where Kowalski was standing. Kowalski looked like he was being somewhat suffocated by the boy's joyous hug, but he bore it well. The hard boiled spy was suddenly a little boy again, "Uncle Nigel said you'd finally made your fatal miscalculation...?"

"That was him." Kowalski corrected, looking at Blowhole, "By the way, you're forgetting to cover the prisoner."

"Oh." Private apologised, fumbling with the gun a moment before aiming it once again at Blowhole.

"Easy, I was only warning you for future reference." Kowalski continued, pointing the boy's pistol away before he could hurt someone, "We have a temporary truce."

Kowalski quickly explained to Private what was going on as it really wasn't that complicated. The moment Kowalski had said he and Blowhole had a truce Private had correctly surmised there was only one thing that could bring that on, and that was Doris. Private was sympathetic for the loss of his lab, but was less approving of their goals once they got to France.

"That sounds an awful lot more like kidnapping than a rescue to me," Private frowned, "Considering the fact she doesn't want to go with you."

"Potato, potato." Blowhole shrugged, doing his best at an English accent for the second one.

"It'll be a kidnapping for the first half, then when she realizes that what we're doing is in her best interests, it'll be a rescue." Kowalski added. That seemed to be good enough for Private.

"Well, I want to go with you, then." The boy concluded. This was not the result Kowalski had wanted.

"You're staying right here." Kowalski countered, but Private looked like he was going to be as stubborn about this as Kowalski had been with his clipboard.

"It's not very polite of you to go running back across after Kowalski, Skipper and Rico went to all that trouble to bring you over here." Blowhole reasoned.

"Private, we brought you back here for your own safety…"

"But I don't want to be safe!" Private suddenly burst out, "Everyone else wants me to be safe, but I don't!" Kowalski went to counter that staying safe was really in his best interests, similar to Doris, but Private had heard enough of that one, "Do you realize how lonely it is cooped up in this cottage? How useless I feel with people like Phil and Mason and Skipper going out there and not coming back? Nigel says I'm still just getting over being overseas and that I need to rest and stay quiet until I've come to terms with what happened and all that kind of stuff, but I belong out there." Private paused for breath, "All of those traps and sensors you probably came across on the way in…"

"Pretty badly placed." Blowhole commented, trying to divert the conversation away from an opportunity for Kowalski to voice that this was all Blowhole's fault for not telling him he'd already switched the clipboards.

"That's because they're not there to keep people out, they're there to keep me in!" Private explained, "Nigel put those up after my first couple of 'escape attempts'. He also has Roger follow me everywhere too and keep checking in on me like I'm ten. I'm not a kid anymore, I can be useful out there and I'm going to get out of here." He paused again and looked awkwardly down at his feet realizing he'd been a little forward. "Please can I come with you?"

"No." They both replied n unison. This was one situation where the big blue eyes were irrefutably overshadowed by the image of Private laying dead in a ditch somewhere in enemy territory.

"Fine." Private moved towards the phone, raising the pistol threateningly when Kowalski tried to stop him, "I'm going to call Uncle Nigel and tell him everything." Blowhole and Kowalski looked at each other. They didn't exactly have a choice.


	7. Rico

Skipper was fading, Marlene could see it. Hans had put him right in front of her so she could see it. He'd left her completely alone for quite some time so she could watch it uninterrupted. For once the pain would have been a distraction, an improvement, since she had no choice but to watch him die. That was also why Skipper wasn't saying anything. She knew he could hear her as she talked to him regardless. He was perfectly conscious, entirely aware of every drop of blood that slowly dripped out of the IV in his arm, that stained the bandage around his leg. Hans had also positioned her so her fingers were barely inches away from the apparatus, close enough she could just touch the tips of his fingers with her left hand but not enough that she could jerk the needle from his arm. That had been a fight in itself, in the end he'd been restrained and sedated, but not enough that he wasn't painfully aware of the needle.

Every hour it seemed like he turned paler and paler, like the life was draining out of him, which it was. She was told he had one last hour before the blood loss killed him. Hans always reminded her that every drop subtracted was being saved so there was no question of having to find someone of his blood type for a transplant, she could just say the word and he'd be returned to health. He'd even added that he was the same blood type, worst came to worst, and that Doris wouldn't let him break his promise that if Marlene talked, Skipper would be saved. Sure, brought back to life long enough to be shot.

* * *

"… Tell me a little more about exactly what I'm supposed to do, then I'll tell you if I can do it… No, that sounds reasonable, though it always depends on the individual case…"

"Darling?" Doris spoke resting a hand on her husband's shoulder, "You said…"

"I'm busy, Doris." Hans interrupted and turned back to the radio, "Sorry, that was my wife," She was still standing behind him and Hans motioned for her to go away, "She's fine, though I don't see how it's any of your business… intelligence, yes, I suppose you consider everything your business."

"Why don't you ever spend time with me anymore?"

"I told you Doris, when I've broken the two spies, then we can have that picnic."

"That was what you said last time."

"Well I never asked Skipper to go looking for you." Hans snapped and went back to the wireless. "No, I have the connections, it won't be any trouble…"

"Can you kiss me goodnight like you used to, then, if you're going to be working all night?"

"Doris!" Hans hissed exasperatedly, then gave in, "Fine, make it quick then go away!" Doris kissed him lovingly, but Hans still seemed more interested in the wireless.

"Am I interrupting something?" Doris heard crackle over the radio from her close proximity to the headphones.

"Ok, enough, go away." Hans hissed at her and reluctantly she left the room, "£13,000*, that's not insignificant... Of course I can get a plane, half the people I deal with every day still think I'm a general… You know, I think I could probably even convince him of that again… No, I don't particularly like using force, it's not all that effective in a lot of cases…" Hans was interrupted by the sound of what sounded like a grenade followed by several gunshots downstairs, "I have to go, I think someone's trying a jail break. Yes, I'll do it. Over."

Hans started down the stairs cautiously, but soon dropped the caution.

"Toss your weapon down the stairs then come down with your hands up!" A British accented voice called up the stairs, "We have your wife and we are not afraid to take drastic measures."

"Oh, not again." Hans groaned, but complied with their requests. At the bottom of the stairs was a group of four men standing in the middle of what in barely the space of a few seconds had been turned from a country residence to a complete warzone. He recognized one of them, he was that American who wasn't really an OSS agent who hadn't really tried to assassinate Skipper with a bow and arrow, all as part of a plan to escape. There were two others as well who looked like brothers, one of which had been the one to threaten him, then a forth who seemed to be wearing some kind of ridiculous crown made of leaves and exotic fruits.

"Where' Ma'fredi and Johns'n?" Rico demanded.

"Not here, they've never been here." Hans replied. Rico pointed his rifle threateningly at Doris, though Hans seemed bored if anything. "Why would I lie to you? In this kind of situation it would be very awkward for me to tell you something it would take you about five minutes to find out is untrue."

"Well we are not believing you, buddy," The one with the crown countered, "We have, like, de best source ever – de sky spirits – and they are saying that you are having de Manfredi and Johnson." Rico seemed to agree, firing a warning shot a few feet above Doris' head. Doris screamed, but Hans was unfazed.

"Where Ma'fredi an' Johns'n?" Rico demanded again.

"Look, did they have any kind of information I might want to be in possession of but they were reluctant to relinquish?" The silence he got in reply said no, "Was there any outstanding reason why those two would be candidates for either brainwashing or believed that some persuasion would convince them to do something they wouldn't do on their own free will?" No again. "Then why would someone give them to me?"

"See, they escaped with us," Mason explained, "They got themselves caught again pretty fast, but we have a reliable information source that told us they hadn't been sent to any of the POW camps, though they had been in uniform. However, we did hear that they were taken alive and were likely kept due to the scientific interest in just how they'd been kept alive all this time. With Blowhole on compassionate leave in Dusseldorf, and nobody seems to be able to find him, Manfredi and Johnson are really their only sources. Now, we are reluctant to hurt anyone, but it's not ruled out." Phil signed something to Mason.

"I quite agree with you, Phil, I am not a doctor so I can't see why I'd end up with them." Hans commented. Rico scowled.

"'ell us where Ma'fredi an' Johns'n are, or…"

"Nothing's stopping you from searching the place, but I'm telling you, they aren't here." Rico gave Hans one last interrogatory glare before shoving Doris into his arms and ordering him to point them in the direction of the cells.

"Take them upstairs, Phil, and keep a look out for anyone else coming." Mason ordered.

"Well you haven't exactly been subtle, I think they can see the smoke in the closest village." Hans commented but was ignored as the two of them were marched upstairs. He'd barely put both feet on the second floor before out of the blue Doris slapped him. "What was that for?!" He exclaimed.

"Did you even care that he was going to kill me?" Doris snapped.

"Of course I did." Hans replied.

"It didn't look like it." Doris countered angrily. Phil seemed to be in agreement with her. "You don't love me anymore, do you? I don't think you even cared if they killed me or not."

"Doris." He decided to take the risk of being slapped again and stepped closer to her as he dropped his voice to a whisper, "that's just what you have to pretend in situations like these. There's no benefit to showing them fear, I'd only be dragging out the situation and increasing the chance that they saw you as an even more powerful bargaining tool and decided to keep you in order to keep me in line. Anyway, I knew he wouldn't kill you, Kowalski would come after him with the contents of his lab, something even Rico wouldn't want to face."

"But Kowalski's…!"

"Shhh," Hans interrupted her, "They don't know that." Doris nodded and sat down in one of the chairs. Phil seemed to be rather intent on going through some of Hans' papers.

"Hans," Doris' eyes narrowed on Phil, "you could knock him out and take his gun and…"

"No, we're better off waiting it out then following them." Hans countered, "I don't want to start a shootout. That would endanger you." Doris blushed, her hope glossing over the fact that at the same time as he said that Hans had that look he got when he was putting some kind of plan together, something more complicated than just waiting it out, "I don't know where you get the idea that I don't care about you."

* * *

"… Kee' lookin', they 'ot ta be in here." Marlene heard an American voice speak. It was official, her sanity was shattering. She didn't blame herself, watching the slow drip of crimson. "Ma'fredi?" the same voice called desperately, "Johns'n!" Wonderful, now she was hearing ghosts, poor souls that had suffered the same fate as her and Skipper. It was amazing what the imagination could do. But Manfredi and Johnson. She'd never heard those names. In fact, she'd never met anyone named Manfredi. Where would her imagination have pulled a name like that from, and given the speaker such a strange voice.

"Hey, over here!" She shouted on the off chance that, well, it wasn't her imagination. "Come on, help me, he's dying!" she shouted and received no reply. "Please!" It was all in her head.

Suddenly she heard another voice, an English one.

"Should we help her?"

"No time." The first voice replied, "'ee let th' doors op'n when 'ee leave."

"But she was saying that de person is dying." A new voice countered.

"'ee prob'ly already gone." The first voice countered, "'ee here t' find Ma'fredi an' Johns'n first." Marlene was panicking. The drip of red blood seemed to speed up exponentially.

"Come on, Skipper, what do I do?!" She pleaded. Skipper's right eye barely opened, his lips tried to form a word but they didn't make it before he slipped into real unconsciousness. A helpless tear slipped down her cheek, "I'll talk, alright, I'll talk!" She called into the silence but this time received no response. She was ready to give in and Hans wasn't there, what kind of an interrogator was he? Manfredi and Johnson. They were after Manfredi and Johnson. Maybe if she could get them into the cell… "Just hang in there, Manfredi, just a few more hours." The soft murmuring between the three newcomers stopped and was followed by the sudden clatter of boots running across the room.

"Stand clear, he's going to blow the door!" the English voice shouted. He heard what sounded like some kind of a crazed, if slightly joyous laugh, from the first speaker and what sounded like a whole lot of dynamite.

"That's kinda a little hard to do, I'm tied to a chair." Marlene shouted back, "Right next to the door. The key's hanging next to the other door." There was what sounded like a groan of disappointment and a few seconds later a key turned in the lock and the door opened.

"De woman tricked us!" The third voice, a crazy looking guy wearing what looked like a crown made of fruit and leaves, "That is not Manfredi and Johnson…"

"Tha' 'Ipper!" The first voice, a burly man with a scar running down the side of his face exclaimed, rushing to disconnect Skipper.

"My goodness, woman, why didn't you say so!" The English voice lectured.

"Hey, he's got a lotta enemies, I learned the first week workin' with him not to even shout out his name amongst the resistance." Marlene countered, "Listen, you've gotta get us out of here, Skipper's got some pretty important information…"

* * *

"Dammit." Hans snapped, glaring out the window at the escapees, though he'd never doubted that if they found Skipper they'd take him with them. He turned away from the window, walking across the room to the desk with the wireless and removed a spare gun from one of the drawers. He grabbed his coat and a pair of binoculars and started for the stairs. "Doris, pack us three days of clothing then wait for me at Antonio's."

"But honey…?"

"Do it!" Hans barked from where he was already half way down the stairs, "He is _not_ getting away again."

***Roughly £528,600 ($862,802) today.**


	8. Kitka

Private adjusted his helmet for what seemed like the fiftieth time. He knew he looked terribly conspicuous, but he couldn't help it.

"I don't suppose they have a smaller size?" He finally asked.

"Well I'm sorry but England isn't exactly the major supplier of German uniforms." Kowalski replied, "There's nothing I can do." He and Blowhole seemed to have decided on a café across the small but busy square. "And we aren't jeopardizing the whole operation to make you more comfortable.

"Of course." Private replied.

"Now Private, whatever you do, keep your mouth shut." Blowhole ordered. "This is France, they'll know what you're speaking isn't French." Private nodded, and the three of them entered the café getting themselves a table in the far back corner. "One cognac." Blowhole ordered. Kowalski motioned to make that two. Private looked about as sneakily as he'd ever looked in his life across at Kowalski and raised a hand to make that three. Kowalski shook his head and changed it to a glass of water. "You are getting rebellious." Blowhole commented. It was probably being locked in a cottage in rural England that did it. Private flushed with embarrassment, and Blowhole was kind, or impatient, enough to continue onto the actual conversation, "Alright, Doris is currently living in a small country house, a kind of mini mansion, that Hans' operation is headquartered in a little further down the river. Well, we all know there's going to be security but not on the level of my old camp, of course."

"Old camp?" Kowalski asked.

"Yes, its not mine anymore." Blowhole replied grimly.

"I think I can take care of it then." Kowalski continued, "How do we get Doris out, though?"

"Force, I suppose." Private added, assuming that when other people were not around he was free to speak.

"I don't suppose you've ever heard how loud she can scream when she wants to?" Blowhole countered, "And she's never really understood what's in her best interests."

"Gunpoint?" Kowalski suggested.

"Are you kidding me? I'm her brother and you're madly in love with her." Blowhole countered, "Her romance life might hint otherwise, but she isn't stupid."

"What about me?" Private asked, "She barely knew me, just as the little French kid, and I've grown since then."

"We can't really trust you to safely carry a firearm." Kowalski countered. Private scowled.

"There you go again! Stop treating me like a kid!" He snapped, then immediately apologized, "If anyone isn't safe to hold a weapon it's you who couldn't shoot a lobster at six feet." Blowhole had to agree with that one.

"Oh, don't you start too!" Kowalski snapped and the beginning of a very long argument was prevented by the appearance of a very beautiful woman, "I am talking to you, Blowhole…" Blowhole's eyes were entirely fixed on the statuesque red head who was approaching the table.

"Dr Blowhole, I presume?" She spoke.

"Uh… Yeah." He replied.

"He's mistaken." Kowalski cut in hurriedly, giving him a solid kick under the table, "This is…"

"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist the cliché." She continued, ignoring Kowalski's attempt to undo Blowhole's damage. Despite the fact her words seemed to make light of the situation, her tone and demeanor were entirely stony, "I know who you three are. I saw you parachute into that field yesterday." She turned to Kowalski, "I liked your obituary."

"Why thank you." Kowalski replied.

"Did you like mine?" Blowhole asked.

"You didn't have one." She countered. Blowhole looked extremely disappointed by this, but in England he was an enemy prisoner of war and on his own side a failure so it wasn't surprising, "May I sit down?"

"Of course, how rude of us." Private replied, pulling up a chair, then immediately remembered Blowhole'a order and smiled apologetically. The woman sat down gracefully as if the battered wooden chair was a throne. Judging by her clothing she certainly lived in luxury, but in the same time it was dark and sombre, almost as if in mourning.

"You know, I originally mistook you for British spies until I saw the doctor. My ex-fiancée respected you as a pilot, of course, until you lost your eye." She recounted.

"Do I know him?" Blowhole asked.

"Oh, you'd never forget him." She replied, "I hear you're going after 'Hans', I think is the best name to refer to him as since it is the only one he regularly uses." This time Blowhole had the sense not to say anything. "I want in."

"Miss…"

"You can call me Kitka." She replied.

"Miss Kitka," Kowalski continued, "Even if we were going after this person, you couldn't accompany us." Kitka leaned forward slightly and her voice dropped to a whisper.

"How many soldiers would you say are in this café?" She asked.

"Approximately 57.62% of this establishment's patrons." Kowalski replied.

"How long do you think you'd last against all of them?" Kowalski went to make the appropriate calculations, but Kitka continued, "Because one of you's a deserter, you're an American and the boy's English, and all I have to do is shout that out and you're all dead." Kowalski didn't have to do many calculations to verify that one. "So you can count me in. What's the plan?"

"Well, Dr Blowhole says he knows Hans' current location." Kowalski grudgingly answered, "I intended to properly study the area and then form an extraction strategy from there. Both targets will be taken alive and preferably without raising too much alarm and then taken to a friendly safe house where we will await transport to England."

"Why take him alive?" Kitka asked, eying Blowhole in a manner that suggested she'd formed an opinion of him as the type who wouldn't prefer alive over dead.

"That was his idea." Blowhole replied, referring to Kowalski, "He tried to kill him once before and didn't have the guts to do it so it isn't likely he'd be able to do it this time. He'll take him alive, make sure a quiet divorce happens then Hans will be tried for his crimes which would end in his execution – though in my opinion he always finds a way out of everything so…"

"Doris is the one we're really after." Kowalski interrupted. "And we have a secondary objective to if possible find out from him what happened to a friend of ours who went missing over here." Blowhole didn't seem all that keen on that one, "After Dr Blowhole has been returned to wherever he chooses."

"Sounds like it would work." Kitka replied. "Just so you don't think I'm completely useless, I can arrange for transport for us. My car is waiting a few streets away." She stood up, apparently deciding that now was the time to leave. Kowalski and Blowhole silently fought it out over who was going to pay the bill before realizing it didn't matter since it was all money Maurice had provided them with anyway.

"I wonder what her stake in this is." Kowalski spoke. "I don't think she'd tell us if we asked." He added before Private suggested that the fastest way to find that out woils be to politely ask her.

"It doesn't really matter." Blowhole replied. Either way they were stuck with her and something about her made Kowalski think whatever interest it was, it was legitimate.

* * *

"My car is just around the corner." Kitka spoke.

"Good to here." Kowalski muttered. Every step he took he had the odd feeling he was walking into a trap, but if it was a trap he didn't have much choice but to walk into it. Anyway, he couldn't see why it would be a trap. Whatever her motives were she didn't seem to like Hans very much. No, worrying about her wasn't logical. Still, as unofficial leader and with responsibility for Private he couldn't help it. Maybe that was why Skipper was so paranoid.

"K'walski!" Private whispered, alerting the group to a kubelwagen just turning around the corner.

"That's Kazoo!" Blowhole added, "He'll recognise us!"

"Split up." Kitka ordered immediately grabbing Blowhole and starting across the street as Kowalski ducked into the nearest ally. They turned off onto a smaller road and kept walking. Blowhole couldn't see around the corner but behind him he heard the car's engine getting closer and closer then it seemed to slow, and then pause for a moment. In fact, Kitka had stopped too, staring at the busy town square ahead. Just as Blowhole saw the vehicle begin to turn the corner Kitka turned into an even smaller street off to the side. "It's a dead end." She spoke, though the fact was quite plain to both of them. And Kazoo was still approaching.

"Are you trying to strangle me?" Blowhole exclaimed, pushing the woman back after she'd suddenly thrown her arms around his neck.

"Don't be ridiculous." She countered, pushing his hand away and taking another step forward. He pushed her back again. "Of course I wasn't trying to kill you, you idiot." She snapped, and out of the blue the palm of her hand collided painfully with the side of his face. Stunned, whether it was the slap or her calling him an idiot that had caused most of the shock, Blowhole barely knew what was happening before he found Kitka's arms around him, pulling him into a passionate kiss. That was almost the exact moment he heard their pursuers stop at the other end of the cul-de-sac.

"I could have sworn…" Kazoo spoke, then shook his head. "No, I guess that wasn't him. Of course it wasn't, Blowhole's still on leave."

"Oh, no, that isn't Blowhole." The lobster seated next to him concurred. Kazoo took one last look then made a U-turn, resuming his trip where he'd left off, "the old doc never could get a date, I don't think he's ever left that lab of his long enough."

Kitka let go of the struggling doctor (though his efforts at resistance had significantly decreased) as soon as Kazoo was back on his way. He stumbled backwards a few steps, staring at her.

"I'm sorry, but I didn't have any other options." She apologized briskly, quickly repairing her lipstick before starting back down the road towards Kowalski and Private.

"Apology accepted." Blowhole replied breathlessly, still staring at her as if he were still trying to comprehend just what had happened to him. After a few seconds he seemed to have at least understood the outline of it, "Actually, it wasn't that bad, even slightly enjoyable."

"Well I'm glad to hear you aren't going to burst into tears and tell Kowalski I tried to kill you." Kitka replied, her tone making it clear she was slightly annoyed that Blowhole still hadn't quite caught up to her. "And also that you understand it was nothing but the most practical way to hide your identity."

"Oh, yes." Blowhole replied quietly, and if Kitka had looked back what she wouldn't have seen was professionalism. In fact, what she would have seen was closer to the look of a rejected puppy. Still, the thought had already been introduced to his mind that perhaps that wasn't just it. He made a mental note to ask Kowalski for the symptoms of true love and compare them to his own.


	9. Dance

When Blowhole, Kowalski, Private and Kitka arrived at Hans' base of operations, the last thing they expected was for the doors to be left wide open and no guards in sight. Kowalski had even put a spontaneous Space Squid landing higher up his list of probable observations. But even a low probability was still a possibility.

"They say he studies his opponents carefully before he goes after them." Blowhole commented, watching the building suspiciously like the bricks and mortar were going to attack. "Perhaps he planned to disorient you by confronting you with the illogical." Private looked at him with slight confusion.

"So you're suggesting it's a trap, essentially?" He asked.

"Yes." Blowhole replied. Kowalski, however, didn't seem to agree.

"Why would he know we were coming?" Kowalski asked.

"He tortured it out of S…" Then Blowhole remembered that Kowalski had decided not to mention Skipper's name to Kitka yet, "your friend."

"He didn't know we were coming." Kowalski countered, "And who says Hans even has him? Knowing him there's just as good a chance he's started one of his crazy operations and has decided to go radio silence." That was a very optimistic interpretation of possible events, and they all knew it. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"What about the kid's uncle?" Blowhole suggested, "Maybe he wasn't too pleased about us breaking into his nephew's cottage and Private blackmailing us into bringing him along?"

"How dare you say that about Uncle N…!" Private immediately began to protest, but was quickly cut off.

"Everyone thinks we're dead." Kowalski countered, taking a cautious step out of the trees, "And why would he endanger his own nephew?"

"As a lesson not to do that again." Blowhole suggested.

"Turning him over to Hans wouldn't be 'lesson' it would be certain death." Kowalski countered grimly. Apparently Blowhole saw Hans only as a substandard husband and didn't know him like Kowalski did, "You don't know what he did to my commanding officer. He told me some of what he remembers, once." Kowalski went silent, and took another step out from the trees. Nothing happened, and he started across the grounds to the open doors.

Inside the entire foyer seemed to have fallen victim to several grenades, about fifty bullet holes and for all the damage done maybe a bolt of lightning. A dead body, one of several, lay just inside the doors.

"Well," Kitka concluded calmly after a quick inspection of the corpse, "I'd say by the condition of our friend here this place has been empty for at least half a day."

"How can you guess that?" Blowhole asked in a strangely hostility lacking tone for someone who'd been beaten to a deduction. Now that Kowalski thought about it, Blowhole spent a lot of time staring at her.

"The fact his watch was smashed an hour ago. He wasn't killed an hour ago because rigor mortis has set in so it must have been the same time either twelve or more likely a little over six hours ago." She replied, "I do a lot of reading and I've seen a lot of corpses." She added in cryptic explanation.

"Why don't we split up to cover more ground?" Blowhole suggested. He chanced an awkward glance at Kitka then continued, "Me and Miss Kitka can take the ground floor and this time you get the floor above?"

Kowalski, at this point, was more than happy to move on from the corpse and the creepy suit of medieval armour that stood at the other end of the hall and almost seemed to be watching them. He went upstairs, finding what appeared to be living quarters. Judging by the metallic clanking sounds he heard behind him as he climbed the stairs, they didn't have the best plumbing. The place was a mess and someone seemed to have packed in a hurry. The remaining personal effects belonged to Hans and Doris. At least that settled one of his fears because Doris had made it out alive. Hans had too, unfortunately, but the point was Doris had. There appeared to be nothing left behind that would indicate where they were going; apparently they'd left in too much of a hurry to leave any clues like cryptic markings on a map or silhouettes in the dust of specialized equiptment.

As Kowalski turned around to go back down the stairs he nearly walked into another suit of armour. For a split second the childish notion that the suit of armour was following him crossed his mind, but he immediately dismissed it. Simply whoever had owned the dwelling before Hans had taken it over must have been some kind of medieval enthusiast specializing in one particular era and style: both suits seemed almost identical to him but he was sure to the eye trained in that field they were very different.

Kowalski arrived at the bottom of the stairs to find the entire entry room completely empty, which wasn't all that unexpected. Suddenly there was the patter of feet running, and trying to run stealthily. Kowalski ducked behind an ornate piece of furniture in time to see Private dash out of one of the doors and immediately run over towards him.

"I'm that rusty." Kowalski commented to himself as Private seemed to regain his breath, but at almost the same time nearly jumped out of his skin on seeing him. Well, that made him feel a little better: the kid had simply picked the same hiding place.

"K'walski, I'm so glad you're alright!" Private whispered, glancing over his shoulder, "Blowhole and Kitka have been captured; the dungeons were full of soldiers!" Kowalski was already walking quickly towards the exit, "Where are you going?!"

"Where do you think?"

"But what about Dr Blowhole and Miss Kitka?" Private protested.

"First, I'm getting you out of here." Kowalski replied. However, despite his determination he didn't get more than two steps outside the door before he stopped, his hands raised in surrender.

"Well look what we have here," Possibly one of the most obnoxious voices Kowalski had ever heard in his life speak. The speaker had a certain boyish look, like a dark mirror of Private, and honestly didn't appear all that threatening, but at least his voice was certainly infuriating. However, the five gun-toting soldiers behind him didn't look so insignificant, "You look familiar." That wasn't good. The little man grinned, "You're that clumsy scientist who got himself killed that was in the paper the other day."

"I'm not clumsy, that was a deliberate accident." Kowalski countered, almost to be entirely ignored.

"…Your obituary was pretty funny."

"I thought it was rather touching." Private replied, looking more than a little hurt. If anything the newcomer seemed to like this. Still, there was something familiar about him. Suddenly it hit him, and suddenly the world seemed a much scarier place, "You're the Dart Frog!" he exclaimed.

"Yes I am." The little man replied, clearly pleased to be recognized, but quickly seemed to lose interest, "Go put them with the others in the dining room." Blowhole and Kitka were in the dungeons, which meant…

* * *

Kowalski and Private were shoved into what had once been a somewhat overly ornate but now furniture devoid dining room, and ordered to join the others gathered on the opposite side of the room. Those others Kowalski immediately recognized as Rico, Phil and Mason, Julian and a brunet who fit Skipper's slightly over flattering descriptions of his girlfriend, Marlene.

"Three teams of spies." The Dart Frog spoke from the doorway, "you must have been after something very important." None of them said anything, but Marlene frowned at the mention of a third group. "Oh yes, we caught them too."

"I have no idea who you're talking about." Marlene countered. The Dart Frog sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Can't anyone think of a better line than that?" He clearly didn't believe her. Then he grinned, "Alright, so you're going to be difficult." He paused barely a moment, thinking, then continued, "You know, I was watching a movie last night, it had a lot of dancing. I've always wondered how long people could dance for, nonstop, under certain conditions. I've heard about competitions like that."

"I tho' 'oo obsessed wi' Ja' Aust'n?" Rico countered. Barry shrugged as if to say that was old news.

"Don't have the right props." Barry walked over to the fire place, threw a few extra logs on the cold ashes then began lighting the fire. "Go, on, partner up, I said start dancing!" He suddenly snapped. Marlene shrugged as if to say that didn't sound all that bad, elegantly offering her hand to Kowalski. The music started, one of Barry's associates starting a lightly damaged record player.

"Hi, I'm Marlene, I'm a close friend of Skipper's, he might have mentioned me." She greeted as the dance began.

"Where's Skipper?" Kowalski whispered.

"Thankfully, back at the safehouse getting his leg patched up properly." Marlene replied, "Y'know, this could actually turn out to be kinda fun, I've heard you're some dancer." Kowalski didn't share her optimism. He knew the Dart Frog's reputation. There was more to this than met the eye.


	10. Saved by the Ubiquitous Suit of Armour

"I wonder what he's doing with that fire." Kowalski mused. Marlene had to admit that was a good point. "Why are you here?" Kowalski asked. "And where's Skipper."

"I left Skipper behind with the doctor." Marlene whispered in reply, "He wasn't in very good shape when Rico got us out of here." Marlene's tone tried to make light of it, but whatever had happened to them wasn't something they were likely ever to forget. It was too obvious that Kowalski was about to ask why, if they'd just broken out, would they come back? "I had to come back here to burn Hans' files on us; hopefully he kept the little relatively unimportant stuff we had to give him to himself. I'm guessing you're here to try to find Doris and Private was getting cabin fever back in England." Was it really that obvious? "What did he mean about a third group?"

"Don't worry, there isn't one, it's just a clichéd interrogation technique." Kowalski countered hurriedly. Admitting he was working with Dr Blowhole was just going to result in complicated explanations he didn't need to go into at this time. Marlene frowned as if to say this was one she'd never heard of, but didn't dwell on it.

"Feel like talking yet?" That obnoxious voice asked.

"Me? No, this is fun." Marlene called back, though Julian seemed to be enjoying it the most out of all of them. Kowalski deliberately stepped on her toe.

"Are you crazy?" On second thought, if she was working with Skipper, she probably was.

"Good, because we're going to get to the really fun part." the Dart Frog picked up a small shovel next to the fireplace, pulling out about a half shovel of hot ashes. He threw these onto the carpet, some of which caught onto the carpet near their feet. The captives stamped several out, but the Dart Frog only threw some more down a little further out of range. The carpet started to burn.

"Are you crazy?" Phil demanded. "You're going to burn the place down!" A bullet embedded itself in the carpet inches from his foot.

"Did I tell you to stop dancing?" the Dart Frog snapped, "No, that's the point. You're going to dance till you burn, or till you talk. One of you's going to talk." The carpet around them was now really starting to catch fire. Kowalski was severely tempted to give in. After all, they weren't exactly hiding much, though Marlene seemed adamant not to say a word. Whatever that 'relatively unimportant stuff' was, it was important enough Marlene would rather not have it read by the Dart Frog.

The smoke was starting to actually become fairly significant now. This really wasn't how Kowalski had wanted to go out or even be hospitalized for: dancing to his death in a burning room, and with another one of those annoyingly ubiquitous suits of armour staring at him. Kowalski paused on the suit of armour thought, noticing that that clanking plumbing was there again too, which didn't make the situation any more pleasant or dignified. For some reason Kowalski's attention was once again drawn to that suit of armour. The suit of armour appeared to be moving, swaying slightly on its feet. Kowalski shook his head. It had to be the smoke inhalation. He looked again. No, it was moving, alright. Funnily enough, it looked drunk.

The metal man seemed to try to raise his hand - which definitely had to be his imagination - then swayed one last time, toppling forward and landing on the Dart Frog and a few other henchmen. Using the surprise and the smoke screen Kowalski and Marlene, who were closest, made a dive for the two trapped men's guns. A very brief firefight later and they had the place to themselves.

Kowalski was at first going to simply run for the door with the rest of them, but Marlene had stopped in the doorway, looking suspiciously at the suit of armour. After a few precious wasted seconds she approached the armour, paused a moment, then removed the helmet.

"Hey, Rico, Kowalski, give me a hand with him!" Marlene called. Under the helmet was Skipper, well and truly unconscious. Immediately the entire group rushed over, dragging Skipper, suit of armour and all, out of the building and out towards the cover of the trees. Someone at some point was going to notice the burning building and they didn't want to be found standing in front of it. "Skipper, come on, wake up!" she ordered, trying to sound annoyed, but clearly she was more worried, "I told him to stay with the doctor," Kowalski saw Blowhole and Kitka run out of the building and immediately start heading towards him. Kowalski motioned for them to stay out of sight, "he's weak and he shouldn't even be out of bed…" She seemed to notice Kowalski was staring back at the house. "Can't you get him to wake up?" She appealed.

"I'm a doctor of physics, not medicine." Kowalski countered. By his own admission he didn't know much about medicine, but looking at Skipper, he only seemed to have fainted from a combination of the smoke and his injuries. Julian's attempts to wake him up were more likely to do him more harm, "I'll try one thing." He finally agreed when Marlene didn't seem ready to give up on him, "Hey, Skipper, Blowhole's hiding in the trees over there!" Nobody but Kowalski and Private had any idea how correct that actually was.

As if this were some kind of magic word, Skipper's eyes opened though he didn't seem entirely awake, and he attempted weakly to get up, but Marlene held him down.

"Sorry Skipper, false alarm." Kowalski quickly added. Skipper fell back limply on the grass, clearly not too pleased with this. "Just had to wake you up to get Marlene to stop panicking." Skipper seemed to understand that, though it was hard to tell.

"Kowalski?" He mumbled, noticing for the first time the lieutenant's presence there. He groaned, "Lemme guess, you're after Doris and the kid wouldn't stay behind."

"Correct, sir." Kowalski sighed. "Again."

"Drag anyone else over here with you?"

"Just the two of us." Kowalski lied.

"Hm." Skipper's his eyes closed again, "Wake me up when Blowhole's really attacking. That doc wouldn't let me catch any sleep…" And he was gone again.

"I swear that guy scares me out of my wits twice a week." Marlene sighed, though her gaze showed nothing but love for him, "Let's get him back to bed, and this time somebody tie him down." Rico took the suit of armour off him then slung the unconscious Skipper dressed in a comical combination of several different uniforms and pyjamas over his shoulder and started after Marlene towards the car.

"One second, um…" Kowalski thought of an excuse, "Me and Private left some equipment out here before we went in. Where's the car?"

"In the trees just off the nearest road." Marlene called after Kowalski as he ran off into the forest.

* * *

The scientist first checked twice to see that no curious or helpful or suspicious members of the team had stayed behind for whatever reason before continuing on to Blowhole's hiding spot. Hopefully Private had gotten the message about Blowhole and would have the sense not to tell Marlene under 'honesty is always the best policy' or something like that.

"Well it's a good thing I still remember how to pick a lock," Blowhole spoke angrily on seeing Kowalski. "Or you'd have burned us to death!"

"Or I would have picked the lock." Kitka corrected. Blowhole was definitely behaving strangely since he didn't challenge this.

"I was going to go back for you if hadn't gotten out yourselves." A quick glance at the house showed the fire hadn't really spread out of the dining room, confirming that Kowalski could have gone back for them. "Listen, you two are going to have to stay out of sight."

"I've risked too much for you to give up on Doris…" Blowhole began, but Kowalski cut him off.

"I'm not." He glanced back at the trees Marlene and the others had disappeared into, "Look, I've just bumped into that friend," Blowhole knew exactly which friend that was, "he was the one they were carrying out in a suit of armour."

"Who, Skipper?" Kitka asked.

"Yes." Kowalski didn't have time to ask how she knew him, though she didn't look like one of Skipper's ex-girlfriends. He couldn't read what she thought of him, "But I think there's a good chance they'll be able to find Doris better than we can – they know the area better." He finished. Blowhole clearly had other plans for Skipper, "If Skipper turns up dead, I'll see that you never see Doris again, one way or another. You two are going to trail along behind us. I'll bring you food and stuff and keep you updated when I can."

"Essentially, you're using them as bait." Blowhole spoke, seeing through Kowalski's whole plan, "We really aren't that different at heart, Kowalski. You know Hans will be going after Skipper and Marlene, and where Hans goes Doris goes." Kowalski winced, but didn't deny it.

"Just stay out of sight."


	11. Detective Work

"Y… You're investigating the… mistaken… weather reports, Captain Knife?" The young meteorologist stuttered.

"Correct, ma'am." Skipper replied. The meteorologist swallowed nervously.

"Well, anything I can do to help, of course!" She replied, her voice jumping an octave and a bit before she regained control of it, "Gil Force is out at the moment, but…"

"We have already spoken to him." Marlene cut her off. That wasn't actually true, but they didn't need to speak to him. If he was the one they were supposed to pass the information to he certainly didn't want to show it. A pair of glasses and a clipboard – it hadn't been easy to get Kowalski to part with it even briefly – and she was a stony secretary with the charm and conversational skills of a robot.

"We're going to need access to his office and his…"

"Meteorological observatory." Kowalski filled in.

The woman nodded and took them upstairs to a small office filled with charts and other things Skipper couldn't make heads or tails of.

"Y' ca' go now." Rico ordered.

"Thank you for your cooperation." Private added and got a clandestine kick in the ankle from Rico which Skipper seemed to condone. "Sorry, just being polite." Private apologized quietly, "She seemed awfully scared and…"

"That's the point, Private." Skipper interrupted, "We don't have time to waste, and she'll talk faster and say more if she's scared." Private nodded quietly, "Alright, Rico, get that safe open, Kowalski, try to make sense of some of that weather mumbo jumbo." The maniac grinned, producing a stick of dynamite from who knew where. "Crack it Rico, not blow it up." Rico groaned and got rid of the dynamite, replacing it with the necessary tools for safe cracking when he was once again interrupted, "Actually, you don't need to do that, here's the combination, Private found it behind one of the certificates." Now he was deprived of even the meagre enjoyment of cracking the safe. Life could be unfair at times.

"Skipper," Kowalski called holding up a pile of opened letters, previously in a supposedly 'secret' drawer. Skipper looked up from a mass of files he was about to start skimming, "Force was purposely sabotaging the data." The scientist reported. He pointed out a series of figures in what appeared to be Force's private journal that he'd found with the letters and to a page of the official numbers. "According to these he knew there was going to be thunderstorms but he altered the instruments to give a report of clear skies. You should read these, sir."

"Give me the short version, that's what I've got you for." Kowalski didn't take too kindly to the job description of 'short version guy' but summarized the correspondence and the calculations nonetheless.

"It appears he was being blackmailed into it, sir." Kowalski explained, "The letters are from an unnamed person and repeatedly imply that they have something in the format of a photograph that he'd rather didn't come to light. They also specifically instruct Force to alter the weather reports on all five occasions."

"Any idea who this blackmailer is?" Skipper asked. The fact he had to be blackmailed into sabotaging the weather forecasts pretty much ruled out Force as a possibility for their contact, but this other person might be the one they wanted.

"It's typed on generic paper, sir." Kowalski replied, "I could identify the typewriter if provided with appropriate sample text from the original machine. However, the letter was not delivered by hand so we know it was delivered from… I'm sorry Skipper, I'm not familiar with this area." Skipper took the envelope, reading the sender's address.

"That's McSlade's place."

* * *

Dale eyed the trio suspiciously through the crack in the door and at first Phil, Mason and Rico didn't think he was going to let them in. Finally, he swung the door open and beckoned for them to enter the small apartment. He quickly shut the door behind them.

"So Nigel sent you?" He presumed.

"Yes, I suppose in a bit of a roundabout way, but we are under his authority." Mason replied, attempting to win him over, but Dale apparently didn't respond to friendliness.

"Doesn't he realize that I'm far from above suspicion?" Dale criticized, "I'm watched almost constantly."

"Well th' longer 'oo keep 's out in th' hall th' mo' opertu'ities they 'et ta 'et a goo' look a' us." Rico countered. Dale didn't seem to like that, but said nothing, making his way into a small but cosy living room.

"I suppose you want to know more about that new tank." Dale spoke, "I thought I'd sent on the blueprints…"

"'ee recive' them." Rico replied.

"We're actually here on rather more important business." Mason explained. Dale nodded.

"Yes, unfortunate wasn't it, you lost two good men in one week, Skipper and Kowalski." Dale continued, "But I suppose we all knew Kowalski was going to mix the wrong two chemicals together some time. He was brilliant, but he never did care much about safety, his own or other peoples'. You might have heard I spent a couple of months in traction because of him – it was the reason they thought it would be believable for me to 'defect'."

"Well, actually, we're here because…"

"I'm wandering, aren't I?" Dale cut them off. Phil signed something to the effect of asking whether they were ever going to get the opportunity to say why they were there or if this was just going to be a very long guessing game, "So when will Nigel be here? I think you've still got a good chance, I've heard Skipper's still alive and hasn't talked yet. Naturally, I'll give you all the help I can, I've already suggested that my lab can be used as a communications base…"

"Tha' ain' why 'ee here." Rico interrupted and Dale paused.

"Actually, as far as I know, Nigel isn't going anywhere," Mason spoke, "And Skipper and Marlene escaped several days ago."

"Oh." Dale paused, "I must have gotten some misinformation, then."

* * *

"…The point is, sir, my CO needs the reinforcements…" Kowalski immediately recognized Skipper's voice, and his excuse for being there. He glanced briefly at his clipboard – which he was glad to have back in one piece – but immediately realized this might be interpreted as a sign of nervousness at the most crucial stage just when he was being announced. He was nervous. Unlike Skipper, he had no experience impersonating people and at least according to his research, success wasn't an exact science.

The moment he entered the room all conversation stopped and Skipper and McSlade's eyes were automatically on him. Maybe impersonating an inspector whose report would have authority over even McSlade wasn't going to be so bad. He went through all the rather mundane formalities, was introduced to Captain Knife and was sent on a preliminary tour of the chateau Skipper and Marlene had been captured in and the encampment surrounding it. Through the whole thing Kowalski didn't see a thing out of place and McSlade was perfectly calm. Either he was innocent of the blackmail and/or wasn't their contact, or he was someone with a lot of experience.

"Hey, Options-Guy." Kowalski spun around to see Marlene standing in the door way of one of the rooms off the corridor.

"Are you cr…?!" He'd already said that one.

"There's nobody around." She replied, "I'm supposed to be trying to be friendly to you right now to get a better report, so we can talk." Kowalski shrugged and stepped into what looked like a store room. "Well, you didn't exactly send McSlade into a tearful confession."

"On the surface it seems he has nothing to hide. Why are you two here again, anyway?"

"Well, Skipper's here so I have an excuse to be here, and we're having a little lovers' quarrel so I can act sweet on McSlade and see how much he knows."

"Anything?"

"Nothing useful," She replied, "All I've got is this crazy woman, Alberta or something tagging behind me all the time. Probably thinks I'm after her job. She works directly under McSlade, worked herself up from private to it. There is something else though, there's an office…" Marlene glanced at her watch, "Skipper's giving his excuses now." She was a little late since almost that second Skipper appeared at the door.

"Go keep McSlade in his office for about half an hour." Skipper ordered, "That should keep Frances Alberta there watching you too." Marlene nodded and hurried off before McSlade could get any ideas about leaving. Immediately Skipper and Kowalski set off for a smaller office than McSlade's grander affair. "This is that Alberta dame's office. Everything McSlade does goes through her, pretty much, and if it's a dull task, she's gonna do it." Skipper picked the lock and the door opened silently. Kowalski checked one more time to make sure they were alone, then entered and shut the door behind them.

"Usual way? You take the dull stuff, I look for hidden documents?" Skipper asked.

"Yes sir." Kowalski replied somewhat stiffly and made his way towards a filing cabinet. Skipper had expected him to already be there when he asked.

"Something on your mind, soldier?"

"Not yet, sir, this all seems to be very mundane."

"I didn't mean the papers." Kowalski didn't answer. He was in one of those moods. Skipper went back to investigating the desk. Sure, he could press for an answer, he wanted to press for an answer, but all he'd get is a very unlikely lie. They continued in dead silence.

"I can see you have a new partner." Kowalski spoke.

"You just realized that?" Skipper replied, but in a way Kowalski had only just realized that.

"I can tell by your behaviour," Kowalski explained, and there was a chilly, betrayed note to the statement, "it's subtly different. I didn't realize until now she wasn't just another girl."

"Hey, you were the one that left." Skipper countered a little more harshly than he'd meant, but his lieutenant looked like he was about to start pouting like a kid and self-pity wasn't something he tolerated in his men. "Marlene's great, but she wasn't like the four of us were, not even close." The file the scientist was holding dropped to the ground. Skipper pretended he hadn't noticed. "She's even said that to me, it's that obvious." Kowalski was left completely speechless. When he finally did speak it felt like ten years had passed (it was closer to ten seconds in reality).

"I had calculated 37 likely responses and 437 improbable ones and none of them were even remotely close to your statements."

"If you were that far off maybe I don't want you back." Kowalski stiffened and Skipper was worried he was going to drop the file again. "Actually, if you had predicted me, you probably wouldn't want me back." Kowalski opened his mouth to give a touching reply, but he noticed something in the file he'd been staring at and the investigation came first.

"Skipper, you should take a look at this_._"_ Good old Kowalski_, Skipper thought. Kowalski pointed to several documents and ledgers spread out on the desk, "These numbers aren't adding up. It was cleverly done, but they don't add up." Kowalski pointed to a bunch of unintelligible numbers, comparing them to his own calculations, "It divides between some older stuff and newer stuff. Going back several years numbers up to some fairly significant ones have been going missing every couple of months from obscure or possibly non-existent divisions."

"And what's the newer stuff?" Skipper asked.

"That's the really strange part, sir." Kowalski adjusted his glasses, which he didn't need but he thought made him look more official, as if he were trying to find a way to break this gross improbability to his commanding officer, "It's not money, it's Messerschmitts."

"Those things aren't exactly easy to steal or disable or make disappear into thin air," Skipper countered, "Trust me, I've been working for Nigel over here a year now."

"I know you're an expert on the subject," Kowalski replied, "which is why McSlade is clearly a better authority than you because he likely never even had to lay a hand on the plane, it was all done by manipulating bureaucracy then confusing the plane's existence to the point of it never being found." Kowalski drew his attention to the fact that all the records seemed to report differently on the state the fighter was in, it's location and whether or not it even existed. "And the more unusual part is that all three planes are the remains of ones crashed or significantly damaged by Force's false weather reports. They were brought here supposedly for either repair or diagnostics, but clearly there are the facilities for neither here."

"Well I found something too while you were explaining all that." He placed what looked like a plain white sheet of paper he'd found in the dust bin on the table. "Funny thing to throw out when there's a war on and people are supposed to be conserving supplies." Skipper took a pencil and lightly shaded the page revealing a series of indentations.

"That's one of the letters that we found in Force's office?"

"Don't look so puzzled, Kowalski," He was savouring that one, that wasn't something he got to say often, "it's exactly the same as revealing the writing on the sheet of paper under a notepad. I don't know if you've forgotten because with your cushy physicist job you had a typist typing out all your reports, but whenever you type something you type on two sheets of paper to protect the machine. Whatever is printed on the first page is embossed on the second."


	12. It Doesn't Add Up

Skipper, Kowalski and Marlene stood grimly assembled before McSlade. None of them had said a word after the initial protests. They'd been caught red handed. Skipper and Kowalski had just been congratulating themselves on discovering the origin of the blackmail note and evidence of embezzlement when Frances Alberta walked down the corridor. At least she hadn't caught them searching her office, but she had caught them right in the middle of a suspicious conversation being held in English. Alberta had been in there a long time before they were instructed to enter and Kowalski had no idea what she'd said, but he had a feeling it wasn't good for them. He doubted that she believed his excuse that they were discussing like that because he'd wanted to get an honest report out of Captain Knife that wouldn't be overheard.

"You're quite the linguist, Captain Knife." McSlade spoke. "Your accent is perfect and you seem completely at home with the various slang terms and idioms." McSlade's gaze turned on Kowalski, "Yours is pretty good as well." He whispered something to Alberta that Kowalski interpreted as "Not". "I assume you were testing him, Inspector?" At least Kowalski was out of this, "What is your conclusion?" Well, maybe Kowalski wasn't so lucky. Betraying a teammate Skipper knew was no small burden…

"Captain Knife passed with flying colours." Kowalski replied. Apparently for Kowalski, it was. All he gave Skipper was a flash of an apologetic look.

"I thought so." McSlade spoke.

"I can explain…" Skipper began.

"Yes, I suppose it would be good to know."

"I…" Skipper paused, "I studied in America. Before the war."

"Yeah, studied what?" Kowalski scoffed before realizing that wasn't exactly helping, "I mean, clearly the Captain is a man of academia and learning."

"What did you study, Captain Knife?" Alberta asked.

"Uh, y'know, just what people normally study in America." Skipper replied getting the sense he was only digging himself in deeper, "Science and stuff... I didn't finish." He added before Kowalski reached the point of being unable to restrain the urge to call him a fraudulent disgrace to the scientific community.

"What do you think, Alberta?" McSlade asked, "Do you think he fits the bill?"

"Perfectly." She replied.

"We're looking for someone who can pass as an American, or a Brit would be fine too." McSlade explained, "I think you might be just the man." Skipper breathed a silent sigh of relief, "I have no idea what the job would entail, but I was told to keep an eye out for someone like you. Frankly, I think it's just a last effort on his part to get his career back on track after that kidnapping incident. He's looking for some spy or another and thinks that a fellow countryman in need would draw him out, at least I think that's what he's up to."

"I've stayed away from my men too long already," Skipper quickly replied, feigning regret, "I was planning on flying out tonight if I could find a plane and a pilot…"

"That was the other thing I'd wanted to speak to you about." McSlade interrupted, "You know Pinky?"

"Everyone knows Pinky." Marlene commented.

"I'll be flying out there today, you're welcome to tag along." Skipper quickly replied that he'd be honoured to.

"Pinky was my next stop too." Kowalski added quickly. McSlade reluctantly allowed him to come too. Things couldn't have turned out better.

* * *

"You aren't much of a brother, are you?" Kitka spoke. Blowhole had been trying start a conversation with her for hours, ever since Kowalski had left the two of them at the local inn and told them to stay put, but she just kept reading that infernal book. Still, this was better than her previous monosyllabic replies.

"What do you mean I'm not much of a brother?" Blowhole protested, looking hurt.

"Well, your sister's in this mess because of you." Kitka replied. Blowhole loved the way she was always so matter of fact. "You could have stopped the marriage."

"I don't run my sister's life, it was her mistake to make."

"You'd take that attitude with some like _Hans_?" Kitka countered.

"Well, no, I didn't realize what he was like at the time, I thought he was just inept and arrogant and a little over friendly, but I never guessed he was, well, evil." He could have chosen those words a lot better.

"I didn't think you'd have a problem with that last part." Kitka all but sneered, picking up her book again. "I have heard the 'legend': Manfredi and Johnson, the two walking corpses, more machine and science experiment than men."

"I saved their lives!" Blowhole protested.

"I think they would rather you'd left them to die." Kitka picked up the book and resumed reading, then another thought seemed to occur to her, "And I'm sure the fact you were keeping them alive was secondary to your own curiosity." That seemed to be all she wanted to say.

"I know what I did was wrong, but that's why I'm trying to help bring Doris back for Kowalski." Blowhole was all but pleading at this point, "I'm trying to prove that…"

"You can't just forgive the bad someone's done because they do one good thing, in the same way we don't generally expect to forget the good someone did because they did something bad. I don't forgive people. And I don't believe you really care about Kowalski in the least, you just hate Hans." Kitka snapped, Blowhole once again went to protest, but she cut him off, "If Skipper was here, right now, unarmed, you wouldn't hesitate to do what Hans did to him, would you? All for what? Your eye?" Kitka returned to her book.

"So why are you here?" Kitka looked up, "I know revenge when I see it, that's why you're here." Blowhole accused, "You're no better than me; at least I'm open about it…"

"You lost your eye in a fair fight against Skipper, he did nothing out of line." Kitka snapped. Her eyes burned with a hatred that warned Blowhole he'd crossed the line, "I _deserve _revenge, unlike you. I'm not going to pretend its right or moral, but he has to pay." Blowhole, perhaps not wisely, decided to push it a step farther.

"Why, because one of the team was your high school sweetheart who broke up with you?" Kitka just looked at him for an uncomfortable silence, then shook her head.

"A year ago all my dreams were going to come true, I'd just been given this ring." She looked down at a sparkling bit of diamond on her finger, "Then he tore it all down, destroyed everything, because that's what he does." Blowhole let her quietly return to her book. Unless he'd read her wrong, he had a feeling the two of them had something in common, dreams ruined by Skipper.

* * *

"Two of the planes brought down in Force's thunderstorms were from Pinky's outfit." Skipper had addressed the pair. "Then McSlade goes and visits Pinky. Anyone else see something suspicious here?" Skipper remembered Kowalski giving some completely unintelligible statistic that he ignored, continuing regardless, assuming that it was backing up his earlier statement. "Kowalski, I want you to check the planes present against the records, find out if any of them could have been one of the damaged planes, just fixed and repainted. Marlene, you're job's obvious, get information out of Pinky and McSlade. Kowalski, while everyone's watchin' you and on their best behaviour, I'm going to take a look around, see if there's anything interesting."

He liked to keep the vague and open ended objectives for himself. It gave him more room to follow his gut. At that moment all he was following was his gut. So far he'd found nothing to indicate Pinky was doing anything but attempting to cover up his mass smuggling. He found suspicious documents in droves, but they all pointed to that and nothing but that. Really, the more supplies Pinky stole from his own side, the better for Skipper, so he might as well have found less than nothing.

What caught Skipper's eye was a bit like the glint of binoculars in the woods, a flash of light that wasn't supposed to be there. In this case, it came from a box. It was a small box, too small for someone to be hiding in there with a pair of binoculars, who's label claimed was full of used, broken parts ready for disposal. That was what troubled him, because the parts that had caught his eye looked shiny and brand new. Skipper picked one of them up. Sure, he couldn't make heads or tails of what it was, but it looked like it was in one piece and it was so new he could even see the marks left over from when it was manufactured. He checked the box for any other label that would explain the presence of all brand new parts in a box labelled used and broken next to a bunch of other stuff ready for disposal. Skipper's gut told him to look at his watch. He had ten minutes till his plane left.

Skipper could hear a familiar voice faintly from outside the small office-like space he was in, out in the main hangar.

"… It's pretty simple, that's the genius of it…" Only one man he knew always had to include the word 'genius' in describing his own inventions.

"And none of the parts you discarded will go to waste because they're exactly the ones we need for…"

"Exactly, and with the new modifications you should see a 16% increase in…" Skipper stepped out into the hangar just as Kowalski was just starting to get into the dull statistical stuff. "Skipper!" Kowalski greeted cheerfully, "See this engine…"

"Could I talk with you in private, a moment?" Skipper interrupted. Kowalski's new friend thanked him for the advice and left.

"Perfect timing as always Skipper," Kowalski beamed, "You're just in time to see…"

"Yeah, to see you helpin' the enemy war effort."

"Sorry sir." Kowalski replied sheepishly, "It was only a few modifica… well, actually I redesigned about half of it. I'm an inventor, I've gotta invent!" Apparently that didn't fly with Skipper.

"… And stepping out of character like that. Your arrogance could have gotten us all killed if he'd recognised you." Kowalski nodded. "Well, did you find anything useful, at least?" Kowalski winced, "Alright, start packing, we fly back to McSlade's in an hour."

* * *

"I'm sorry, sir, but he just left." Explained the worried aid for the second time, "I have no idea where he went, he just walked out and left. He said it was personal business, nothing that would concern…"

"That was what he said the night he tried to take out that base single handed." Skipper countered.

"It's the anniversary of his fiancée's… disappearance, surely you of all people know that." The lieutenant countered accusingly. Skipper hated to turn up claiming to be on Hans' authority, but he'd tried three other identities none of which the Falcon had granted an audience to. The famed air ace seemed to be almost a recluse, flying out when he was told to but otherwise avoiding leaving the airfield. That, and that they'd been caught searching the Falcon's office (after climbing through the window) and needed a way to explain themselves, "Surely you can understand…"

"You three search his office and quarters again and question anyone you come across," Skipper ordered Kowalski, Private and Rico who immediately disappeared, "Arlene, I want you to take down the lieutenant's answers. Where did he go?" Skipper demanded once again.

"I don't know, he left ten minutes ago, the colonel said he was driving into town." The aid replied, starting to reach the end of his wits.

"Did he say when he'd be back?"

"No, he didn't."

"Was there anything unusual about him?" the soldier looked awkwardly down at the floor then answered.

"Yes, there was. He seemed oddly determined, but we haven't received any orders today, the weather isn't very good. I asked him about it and he said he was going to finish something or set something at rest or something like that." He paused, "He hasn't been his self the last couple of days. He asked me a couple of days ago to quietly circle a description around some of the men he trusts." The lieutenant winced, realizing then that he was as of now no longer one of those men, "It was pretty generic though, I mean, you'd even fit it." Skipper paused. "But…"

"Thank you lieutenant." Skipper cut him off. He called Kowalski, Private and Rico back – they'd found nothing aside from a handwritten note with the description the aid had referenced – and the five of them left. "Why does everything always have to get so much more complicated?" Skipper snapped as he slammed on the gas, racing back towards town.

"I thought you said that's what makes this job fun?" Private asked.

"Not this time." Skipper corrected.

"Is the Falcon the one we were supposed to pass the information to?" Marlene asked.

"I don't know." Skipper replied, "But I know he's after me."

"Skipper, that description could fit anyone your height with black hair and blue eyes…" Kowalski began.

"'Eah, why 'e be af'er oo?" Rico concurred.

"Because that unauthorized mission that cost him his fiancée failed because of me." Skipper replied, "Now thanks to him deciding to pick now of all times to go after revenge I'm going to have to lie low for a while… Rico, give me directions to the nearest safe house you can think of."


	13. Cafe Parc Central

If that was a mouse, that was the loudest mouse he'd ever heard, Blowhole told himself, finally convincing his body that whatever was going on across the hall was worth his waking up to investigate. He heard a door open and shut, attempting to be quiet. He heard Kitka wince as it slammed shut louder than expected. Blowhole had been half way through grabbing his coat and shoes when he froze, Kitka on the other side of the door equally motionless as she waited to determine if anyone had heard her. Hearing nothing, her footsteps continued.

Kitka walked through the darkened streets with undeniable determination at the start, following a route Blowhole recognized. She was heading for that abandoned town house Skipper had set himself up in, and as they got closer to the row he was certain of it. Every other building on the block was empty aside from Skipper's, which was doing a good job of looking empty. Kitka stopped just around the corner. Blowhole ducked behind a house on the street behind as she checked to make sure she was alone. She reached into her bag, removing a blue steel revolver she checked once, then a second time.

Blowhole realized that unfortunately this was his cue to leave. He really wanted to watch Skipper meet his end (if rather inelegantly and uncreatively), but he knew that with his reputation he wanted to be well away when the fireworks started. He decided to go back to his room and catch some sleep before Kowalski arrived to deliver the news of Skipper's untimely death by multiple gunshot wounds, but realized he'd never catch a wink. More likely he'd see if he could find a spot where he could watch the whole thing with a pair of binoculars. He was tempted to walk up to her and ask if he could tag along, but he had the uneasy feeling that, dead Skipper or not, Kitka was about to go to an early grave. Yes, he was going to content himself with watching.

* * *

"Skipper," Kowalski spoke, "I know we're going to be stuck here for a while with the Falcon out for blood," Skipper scoffed absentmindedly as if to say that was the understatement of the century, "but have you given any thought to who your contact might be?"

"Hm?" Skipper looked up from the floor looking uncharacteristically thoughtful. That, or he was sleep deprived or depressed, "Yeah, I've been thinking about nothing but."

"Y'wanna share wi' us?" Rico asked, "'Walski's draw' a blank."

"I have plenty of ideas, Rico!" Kowalski protested, but even Private didn't believe that one.

"Sure, I've got some," Skipper yawned, staring down through the window at the façade of the abandoned café below, Café Parc Central or something, that he wished was open because cafes generally sold coffee, which he needed. Despite what he'd said, he'd been thinking more about Hans. He wondered where in this town he was hiding. _Not thoughtful, just sleep deprived_, Kowalski concluded, noting how fast Skipper's mind had evidently flitted aimlessly from one topic to another, "Marlene, honey, can you get me a cup of Joe?"

"Why don't you get it yourself, honey?" She replied sweetly, clearly with absolutely no intention of going anywhere. Skipper muttered something about women that neither Marlene nor Private liked, "You can get me one while you're at it too."

"Private, two coffees." Skipper ordered, "On the double." The order quickly increased to four, and Private started off for the kitchen. "Well, we can rule out Gil Force, our contact would never be careless enough to let someone in McSlade's operation get compromising photographs of him."

"What do you mean by 'compromising photographs'?" Private asked innocently from the kitchen, "You mean like the ones I heard Kowalski say Phil and Mason got of you and Lola…"

"Yes, Private, compromising photographs, they're not very nice." Skipper cut him off, glancing awkwardly at Marlene and flushing slightly. "Gil fakes the weather reports which cause the planes to crash, all on occupied soil, all fairly close to McSlade's. The remains of the planes go missing and then Pinky suddenly ends up with boxes full of brand new parts marked for disposal."

"I'd just like to point out, Skipper, that the parts you described in the box probably wouldn't belong to any of the missing planes," Kowalski interrupted, "All five planes were fighters, but those parts were more likely from something like a transport or a larger plane."

"But they weren' 'oo part'?" Rico clarified.

"No, those parts might belong in a plane like McSlade's, but all the parts I used were immediately sent to the Falcon's airfield for reuse." Kowalski explained, "And they weren't all new and shiny like Skipper described. I supposed McSlade's new plane must have borrowed some parts from older ones…"

"Anyway, the blackmailer had to be either McSlade or Alberta or someone who had access to that office. I know about McSlade, I didn't think he was competent enough to run his own operation, never mind blackmail someone, but I've seen better acts…"

"Who's this Alberta woman?" Marlene asked. "You looked her up, right?" Kowalski nodded.

"She's actually a pretty impressive woman, background in robotics – worked on some pretty cutting edge stuff on her own time, but never really received credit for it – went for a military career, worked her way up from the bottom to pretty much running McSlade's whole operation. Kept up the robotics until a few months ago when McSlade finally shut her down. She always seems to be fighting it out with her colleagues, but it almost always ends with them giving in to her eventually. Has a real obsession with cleanliness: if you read the number of official complaints she's made on…"

"Kowalski," Skipper interrupted, "I think we can safely rule out McSlade and Alberta."

* * *

"Doris," Hans called without looking up from what he was doing, "Do the words Juno, gold, Omaha, Utah and sword mean anything to you?"

"Are you sure we can't have a fire? I'm cold." Doris asked. Hans, however, didn't seem inclined to give her an answer until she'd answered his question, "No, they don't mean anything to me. Why, what are they?"

"I don't know," Hans replied, "Skipper kept repeating them under the drug." He tossed the paper down wearily, apparently not reading what he'd wanted to hear, "It was probably nothing. Probably, just harmless words Nigel trained him to repeat in situations like that. I don't think I'll bother mentioning them in my report. I wonder where Skipper is…" He stared out the window a moment, his eyes in line with an abandoned café, it's faded sign advertising itself as Café Parc Central, "If you're cold, Doris, make us some coffee, the stove will keep you warm."

"Ok." Doris replied quietly and left the room, shutting the door softly behind her. Hans slashed open yet another telegram that he doubted had any better news than the previous ones.

The door opened again followed by the click of high heels on the wooden floor.

"Doris, I already told you I'm not going to light the fire," He spoke, "This house is supposed to be empty and if large quantities of smoke start coming out of the chimney people are going to wonder, and while we have no idea where Skipper is hiding, chasing him out of town would make finding him a lot harder. Doris?" There was another click, a softer, metallic one Hans recognised well. The traditional thing to do now was to raise one's hands, which he did, "I'm guessing you're not Doris."

"No, I'm not." The woman's voice replied bluntly. Her tone was steady, but only barely.

"You sound familiar. Can I turn around so I can see you?"

"I was about to ask you to." Slowly, and so as not to cause alarm Hans stood up from the desk and turned to face her. She seemed insulted when he clearly didn't recognize her.

"No, I'm sorry, I don't remember you." Hans spoke, "Who are you, what's your story and why do you want to kill me?" The red head scowled. "I'm sorry if I'm being a bit blunt, but this isn't exactly an uncommon experience for me."

"If you were going to live longer than the next five minutes I'd recommend you stop sitting with your back to the door. You can call me Kitka, by the way." Kitka spoke, "And if you want my story, I can tell you every detail because I will never forget one moment of that night." Hans nodded, taking her more seriously.

"Go ahead, Miss Kitka." Kitka knew he'd originally prejudged her a Kowalski who was all talk and no substance, but the moment she was sure he remembered what he'd done he was very, very dead. As much was clear in her eyes.

"It was one year and sixteen days ago." She began cryptically, "I remember I was laying the table for a surprise I'd prepared for him, it was his birthday. I was standing at the window and I was going to run down to greet him as he went to open the door when you and two other men in dark coats walked up to him. You came in with him. I knew who you were, he'd told me that after that failed mission you might come after him, but he said he knew how to deal with you. I know now he was just trying to stop me from worrying." She viciously blinked away a hate filled tear, "I accidentally knocked a glass off the table and you must have realized I was there. One of those men started up the stairs after me. That was when I lost my head, like coward, and I climbed out the window and didn't stop running." She the battle and a single tear slipped down her cheek, "And as I escaped into the forest I heard the gunshot. Why am I going to kill you?" Her free hand wiped the tear away, "Because I hid away for a whole year before I realized that I don't care what happens to me, I just wanted to see you dead."

"You make a very compelling argument, Miss Kitka," Hans spoke without the slightest sign of remorse. But then what had she expected? "Though it appears that maybe you blame yourself because you ran more than me, even." Kitka's finger tightened on the trigger, "It is perfectly natural to run away in such a situation. I'm sure he would have been glad you were able to escape." It was then Kitka noticed the way he emphasized 'ran', 'run away' and 'escape' as well as the fact he seemed to be looking past her. "You know, Miss Kitka, I think I could tell you something you'd find very surprising..." Kitka whirled around to see a blond who'd been standing in the doorway, looking a little bit confused, stifle a scream. Kitka heard the very same sound that had alerted Hans to her presence and dropped the gun.

"You used me as a distraction! You said you'd never do that again!" the blond complained somewhat immaturely, "You promised!" Doris had barely finished her protest when the thump of heavy footsteps on the stairs she'd barely noticed in the excitement suddenly ground to a halt behind her.

"Kitka?!" A man in a colonel's uniform behind her exclaimed in a mixture of joy and terror. Kitka's eyes widened with a similar expression.

"Let me guess," Hans spoke, entirely blasé, "You came to kill me too, to avenge your fiancée. You might want to drop the gun; I don't think I can miss her at two meters." The Falcon reluctantly relinquished his weapon, "Alright, come in." He motioned to two chairs that Doris immediately pulled together and the long lost lovers sat down, their hands' clasped together, never wanting to let go, "Falcon, Miss Kitka, my wife Doris." He introduced disinterestedly, "Doris, whatever happened to that coffee?" Doris nodded nervously casting one pained glance at the couple and left the room, "So what's your story – for Miss Kitka, I was there."

"I… I thought you were dead." The Falcon, stuttered. He turned to his fiancée, "When he turned up at the house… I tried to stall them… When I saw you run off into the woods and those men chase after you… I heard the gunshot, and I thought…"

"Yes, well, it turned out they missed." Hans explained, "The point was you thought she was dead, and that was all that really mattered. I had more important things to do than hunt her down. If she'd had any sense she'd have stayed missing rather than start this revenge quest. The femme fatale act really doesn't suit you." He examined the pair for a moment, as if trying to think of anything else he might want to ask them.

"You won't get away with this!" The Falcon protested immediately realizing what Hans was likely thinking of, "I'm not exactly unknown, people will notice if I go missing." Hans, however, seemed to be rapidly losing interest and didn't give him a reply.

"Doris!" He called, "See if you can get Barry up here, I think the girl only knocked him out." He turned back to Falcon, "And to answer your question, accidents happen to people all the time regardless of their fame and achievements."

Kitka could feel the panic taking over. She gripped the Falcon's hand tighter, but it didn't help all that much with the realization that after believing him dead so long they were both about to die. She briefly wondered who Hans was going to kill first and who was going to have to watch. She could hear the footsteps of this 'Barry' on the stairs.

"Wait, I can tell you where Skipper is!" That got Hans' interest. "I'll tell you, just promise you'll let us go…"

"Kitka!" The Falcon tried to interrupt, "don't say anything!" But they all knew she'd already said too much. Hans knew she knew where Skipper was, and if she refused to tell there were other ways of finding out, and then they certainly wouldn't leave alive. The Falcon didn't trust Hans, but now they had no choice.


	14. A Fair Exchange

"Alright, that sounds like a fair deal." Hans replied without hesitation. "Where is he?"

"You'll never guess,"Kitka chuckled softly, despite her fear, "You'd never guess in a million years."

"Well that's why you're going to tell me." Hans concurred impatiently.

"He's right across the street." Kitka spoke, then continued before Hans had time to call her a liar, "Both of you were always going in though the back or secret entrance, neither of you realized you were there." She pointed out the window, grimacing, clearly not proud of what she was doing, but she had no choice. "Right above that café. It's too crazy and easy to check for me to make up."

"You're right," Hans agreed, "Alright, you can get rid of them now, Barry."

"What?!" Kitka exclaimed, "But you said you'd let us go if…!" Hans' answer was written plainly on his face as he began dialling the phone, ostensibly to call in extra reinforcements. As Kitka and the Falcon were led down the stairs Doris followed. Doris knew Hans knew exactly what she was up to: she was going to try to save them. She knew he didn't even care if she succeeded or not, all he cared about was Skipper.

* * *

"Why can we rule out Alberta and McSlade?" Marlene asked when Skipper didn't continue immediately. He still seemed to be polishing up some of the details on his theory.

"This might be a bit farfetched, but did Alberta ever work on androids?" Skipper spoke, his face suddenly lighting up as he left his chair and began to pace the room.

"Yes, that was her specialty." Kowalski replied, "Good guess."

"Kowalski, where did you get all the parts, the wires, nuts and bolts, all that kind of stuff for your inventions while we were stuck in Blowhole's camp?"

"I stole them from any vehicles I could get my hands on, mostly cars and trucks, but the occasional broken radio or airplane was a special treat…"

"What about five of those, no questions?" Kowalski's expression replied that a year ago he would have considered it a dream come true, "I think this was Alberta's scheme: McSlade had just shut her down, but she wanted to go ahead with her plans to make android duplicates of her annoying colleagues…"

"Don't you think that's a little unlikely, Skipper?" Kowalski countered.

"…So she blackmails Gil into changing the weather reports. The broken planes go to McSlade and she cleverly hides them in McSlade's crazy bureaucracy. After that, she uses the parts from the planes to build the androids then slowly start swapping them out for her co-workers – that explains why her arguments always end with the other guy giving in, it's not them!" Kowalski had to say it was more probable than his earlier idea of a space squid practice invasion of earth.

"But what about Pinky?" Marlene asked, "That doesn't explain that box of parts…"

Marlene was interrupted by the sound of a single gunshot followed by shouting, two of the voices belonging to Mason and Julian. Then they went silent, the silence only interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. When the intruder arrived at the top of the stairs, Phil, Mason and Julian in front of him, hands raised in surrender – though Julian was still emphatically complaining about a minor leg wound he was exaggerating till Hans' told him to shut up and for once he actually did – the five teammates' weapons were all trained on the doorway.

"Do we really have to go through the whole routine of 'if you don't drop your weapons I'll shoot your friends?'" Hans sighed and none of them exactly had any other options. "Anyway, the house is surrounded." A quick glance outside confirmed this, "Did you know I was actually across the street this whole time and neither of us knew it?" Skipper scowled, but at the same time it was clear his mind was racing ahead on the question of identity of the informant, "Go on, I'm curious, who were you supposed to pass the papers on to?"

"Don't you know?" Skipper replied. Hans said nothing to confirm or contradict this. There was one thing he knew for certain about this mysterious contact: Skipper couldn't believe it had been a coincidence that Hans had shown up when he had, the contact must have tipped him off. "Well," Skipper finally resumed cautiously, "Pinky's problem was completely unrelated to Alberta and Force. He thought McSlade was on to him and he had to get rid of him fast and make it look like an accident. So he swapped some of the parts in the engine of McSlade's new plane with old, defective parts meant for disposal, intending that the plane would crash and the investigation would end there."

"Bu' oo flew ba' fine?" Rico countered.

"That's was thanks to Kowalski and his inability to stop inventing," Skipper spoke, and Kowalski was already taking credit before he knew entirely why, "When Kowalski made his modifications, luckily he removed the faulty parts and those were sent on to the Falcon."

"Maybe that was why the Falcon picked now of all times to go after you." Marlene suggested.

"Actually," Kowalski frowned, glancing from Skipper to Hans, "I think he was more likely after Hans. You look quite similar, as evidenced by the fact you were successfully able to impersonate Hans, and Hans did kill his fiancée."

"Actually, I didn't, but that's beside the point now." Hans corrected, "Go on."

"The informant must have been…" Skipper paused, "Dale." He paused again. Dale did seem the likely choice as the contact being one of their agents, but why would he turn them in to Hans? Skipper had never even met him before the party.

"Hey, they stole my tank!" Kowalski exclaimed, pointing out the window at a rather odd looking tank rumbling towards the house at amazing speed. "That's academic dishonesty! That's…!"

"That's espionage." Skipper interrupted just as a volley of bullets shattered every window in the front of the house. The previous peacefulness of the night outside was destroyed by more gunshots, Hans' men firing on the tank, the tank firing on Hans' men and trying to get a clear shot at the house. A stray bullet hit one of the shelves containing all assortment of beakers and chemicals sending it crashing into an overcrowded workspace of more chemicals below and in barely a second the room was full of dense, white smoke.

Kowalski could barely see his hand in front of his face. Bullets whizzed past him as dark shadows drifted in and out of sight in the ear splitting cacophony. Somebody bumped into him in white out, but they stumbled away before Kowalski could identify them. Considering the fact that someone had almost knocked him down, Kowalski assumed it had been Rico. Kowalski himself floundered about blindly, the fumes burning his throat as he searched for a familiar face. He heard Private yell in the distance and Kowalski started in that direction assuming that if Private were in danger Skipper would be heading there too as fast as he could. Sure enough, in the smoke ahead of him that was slightly less dense as he was almost in the doorway of the next room which had a balcony, he could see Skipper's form moving for the next room.

"Skipper," He choked, stumbling into the next room after his commanding officer, "What are we going to…" Kowalski trailed off as he realized through the more dissipated smoke that he had not been following Skipper.

"It seems we find our positions reversed." Hans spoke and Kowalski's blood turned to ice, "Equally, I'm not going to kill you." There were some times, very few times, but times like this that Kowalski forgot he was a world famous scientist. That seemed about all Hans had to say to Kowalski aside from to motion with his pistol that Kowalski was to follow him before ducking into another smoke filled corridor. Considering his house across the street was a mirror image, it wasn't surprising he knew his way around. Hans checked in every door way as if he were looking for someone. Kowalski noticed that the smoke had spread out of the window and into the street below, though oddly enough the tank no longer seemed to be moving, though Hans' minions were still viciously attacking it, apparently mistaking their own side's blind shots as coming from the tank.

Hans noticed something on the window sill of one of the rooms directly under which the tank had driven. Looking inside the vehicle, Kowalski could see it had been abandoned. Hans, however, had no interest in stealing the tank, instead locking on to a set of footprints that led out of the room and upstairs.

In a way alarmingly similar to Skipper Hans kicked open the door at the top of the stairs, his pistol locked onto one of the room's two occupants. However, in the fraction of a second between when Hans' footstep on the top stair would have been audible over the noise and when the door was kicked open, Dale had already hauled the trembling boy up from where he'd been knelt, about to be shot execution style, so he was an effective human shield.

"What's going on?" Private half sobbed, clearly about as confused as all of them except Dale were. Hans had apparently been looking for one of them, but hadn't expected this.

"I'm sorry, kid, I'd meant for this to be your uncle, but you're the next best thing." Dale spoke, which didn't exactly seem to shed any light on the situation. "Nigel was supposed to be here," He motioned to Private, "But like everything it all went wrong."

"But what did Uncle Nigel ever do to you?" Private questioned. Dale scowled.

"Months in intensive care, hours in blinding pain." He glared at Kowalski, "Nigel knew what you were doing was unsafe. He knew an accident like what happened was more than a little possible. I told him myself, but those two just ignored me. Then one day everything goes up in smoke, those assistants end up dead and I'm lying there half dead crushed under part of the prototype of that tank out there. At first they said I wouldn't live, then they said I wouldn't walk again, but I'm tougher than they thought."

"That does sound dreadfully painful." Private commented, which didn't seem to aid his situation.

"You aren't helping." Hans ordered and Private nodded and went quiet.

"Then what does Nigel do? He was afraid I'd flag protests or testify that the accident was preventable, so he sent me over here with a bunch of worthless inventions. At first he said it would be all right, I'd keep inventing, I'd probably get a lab of my own. But no," Dale continued, "then I get a message from Nigel not to work on anything half way intelligent because I'd be aiding the enemy." Kowalski, though it was apparently lost on Hans and Private, saw that as truly a terrible thing to happen.

"But why did you tip off Hans?" Kowalski asked. Hans just looked at him blankly.

"I was never tipped off." He said.

"You knew Skipper and Marlene were carrying something important and that it was in her compact." Kowalski countered.

"I found that out by other means."

"I _did_ tip him off, even if he wasn't intelligent enough to find an anonymous letter on his desk." Dale snapped.

"I didn't go in to the office that day." Hans explained. Dale's scowl deepened.

"It doesn't matter! I tipped him off because I knew if Skipper was captured, Nigel would come out here to rescue him." Dale explained, "But Skipper escaped and it was all ruined!" Through with his story he suddenly fired two shots at his listeners, both of which ducked behind the door frame, unharmed. A third shot followed, but evidently Dale realized that the bullets were not going through the brick. Kowalski immediately had his clipboard out, but he could hardly think of a single option that would get them all out alive.

"Trade yourself for the boy." Hans ordered.

"What?" Kowalski questioned, apparently not intending to do any such thing. "That's suicide, I'm not going to…"

"If the boy dies, rest assured, I will kill you and it will not be pleasant." Hans warned.

"Alright." Kowalski agreed reluctantly, "Dale?" He called out into the room, "I'm the one you really want, not Private. I caused the accident."

"True." Dale replied, and Kowalski almost backed out, but Hans gave him a warning look. He couldn't imagine what interest Hans had in Private's survival, but that was a question he could try to answer if he managed to live. Dale ducked behind a thick article of furniture. "We trade on three. One, two, three!" On three Kowalski stumbled out into the middle ground of the small room at the same time as Private. He barely had time to even consider some sort of escape plan before Dale had taken charge of his new captive. Kowalski was shoved to the ground into much the same position Private had been in before, wondering if he was going to hear Dale's life story first, his terror agonizingly dragged out, or if Dale had waited long enough for revenge The door slammed shut.


	15. The Other Marlene

"Ready Rico? One, two…!"

Kowalski groaned as the heavy wooden beam was lifted from his body and through his splitting headache he retained enough of his wits to roll out of the way before the beam crashed down beside him, sending up a cloud of plaster dust into the air.

"Welcome to the land of the living, buddy." Skipper spoke, extending a hand. Kowalski took it and stumbled to his feet to find himself in what could barely be described as a room; it was hard to believe it had been the room he remembered standing in. Half the ceiling had collapsed, like the wooden beam that had fallen on him, and the remains of the room were covered in a thin blanket of white dust.

"Where's Dale?" Kowalski asked.

"Dead." Skipper replied, pointing to a body almost entirely buried in rubble only a few feet away from the scientist, "What happened here? Aside from him trying to kill you, which is kinda obvious."

"That's a long story." Kowalski answered dismissively. He glanced around the room, still trying to get his bearings, "Did the Space Squids finally invade while I was out?" The last thing he remembered was a very loud bang and then everything went black.

"Nah, jus' a an'i tank shell." Rico replied.

"A couple of Hans' goons found their way into your tank but they couldn't work out how to work the thing," Skipper explained excitedly, "Shot up just about every direction – your tech never was user friendly – before Hans called a retreat. See, even with the tank he'd already lost so many men to us, Dale and friendly fire - and he was low on ammo - that he didn't have a choice." Skipper took in the silence like it was a fanfare to his strategic abilities, "Hey, where's Private?"

* * *

"Dammit, Kowalski!" Skipper snapped, banging his fist down on a convenient piece of furniture, shattering the silence, "Why'd it have to be Private? He's just a kid…"

"Nigel gon' ha' our 'eads once thi' me'age get' through." Rico muttered, but it was clear he didn't even consider that on the same scale as the boy's personal danger. Skipper knew he was just trying not to avoid starting the self-blame and self-pity spiral, otherwise he would have bitten the man's head off for making a comment like that.

"What do you think he's going to do to…?" Marlene began, but trailed off. She didn't even want to even start to imagine that.

"Where do you think they are?" Kowalski asked on a more practical level, "Come on, Skipper, I need data to work miracles!" He added frustratedly, but as Skipper had already told him several times before, there was no data to give. Absolutely nothing. Hans had disappeared into that smoke screen without a trace. They'd just sent Phil, Mason and Julian out for a third time to search for any sort of clue, but they were likely, as they had the last two times, to return empty handed.

"Well," Marlene spoke, looking at the radio that sat in the corner wasting power, "who wants to tell Nigel we just got his nephew killed?" The whole room went silent. That was the first time they'd all had to acknowledge aloud that Private was, in all probability, already dead.

"…Th… This is Private calling Skipper…" the radio crackled to life and at first none of them could believe their ears, "Are you there Skipper? Oh do pick up, Skipper…!"

* * *

"That's enough!" Becky hissed, snatching the headset from the boy. She and Stacy shoved the radio back into the false panel behind the dressing table. Private initially protested, but already he could hear voices outside, "We're only supposed to use the radio when we're closed!"

"I'm sorry to put the two of you to so much trouble on my account." Private appologised, "I'm terribly grateful to you for letting me use your radio, but there are some rather unpleasant people following me and…"

"It's nothing." Stacy smiled, "They'd never think to look for you here. Just stay in the store room until Skipper is able to pick you up tomorrow morning." Private nodded quietly and requested that he might have a lamp and his cross stitch to work on as the two cousins snuck him across the hallway and into a room that looked emptier of goods than it was originally intended to be, though that left more room for Private. He settled down comfortably in a pile of straw that had previously stuffed wine crates, but he'd barely completed more than the first few stitches when Stacy opened the door, her expression worried.

"A group of soldiers have just arrived." Stacy reported seriously, "They've started quietly searching the café."

"I've got to get out of here." Private spoke resolutely standing up and this time not prepared to take no for an answer, "If you're caught hiding me…"

"We're not going to throw you out!" Becky protested.

"No, really, you have helped me immensely already, I can't impose any more, it's not fair to Antonio and the rest of the girls…"

"We _all_ insist that you stay." Stacy countered firmly, "and that's final." Private bit at his lip nervously, "We'd rather die than leave you out there alone."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Private muttered, but Stacy wasn't going to budge, "Do you have a plan?" He asked tentatively.

"Yes, of course," Becky replied confidently, "We're going to put you on stage."

"On stage?" Private repeated, looking considerably more worried than he'd been before she'd said that, and the thought crossed his mind that she was either very bad at hiding people perhaps she didn't have his best interests at heart, "I don't want to offend, but if I should _want_ to leave, for entirely selfish reasons, would I be able to…?"

"No." Stacy cut him off.

"We're going to hide you in plain sight," Becky continued, "See, they're trying to keep a low profile, so they're probably going to search the dressing rooms while we're doing the show, so if we put you on stage with us they won't even be in the same room as you." Private couldn't think of a better idea, since apparently sneaking out one of the back windows was not something he was allowed to do. Still, it sounded suspiciously like how Skipper had ended up in Blowhole's camp.

"Don't worry, we'll put you in the back holding a tree or something." Stacy reassured.

It was a good thing he only had to stand at the back doing almost nothing because his stage fright the moment he took one look at the audience was so great he couldn't do much else. Private hadn't exactly had the most normal childhood. Even before he'd met Skipper, having his primary carer one of the top intelligence men in England meant that he'd experienced more than a few strange things and been a lot of places. But he'd never performed on stage. He'd almost done it once, back when he was in primary school but Uncle Nigel had been called away to – Australia, was it that time? – and he'd been dragged along too for some reason or another. Barely a moment after his mind had become unfrozen he told Stacy this and thanked her for arranging his minimal part.

The moment they were off stage and the rest of the girls began to start to filter off into the audience, Becky steered him towards the dressing rooms, but Stacy blocked their way.

"They're still searching." She reported.

"Alright," Becky looked uncomfortably out at the room, "Stay with him." She ordered.

Stacy kept Private at the far end of the bar with Antonio, fending off the cabaret and it's rowdy patrons while Private tried not to watch the door with too much visible longing. Becky had agreed to report when the coast was clear.

"Good evening, fraulein." Private's head whirled around at the sound of the familiar voice. Stacy looked like she was about to have a heart attack, but somehow kept it together. "I don't think I've seen you before." Hans spoke. Private unsuccessfully tried to manage a reply, any excuse would do, "But then I don't come here very often anymore."

"This is my cousin Marlene." Stacy automatically regretted blurting out the first girls' name that came to mind, and Hans seemed to notice the high percentage of cousins named Marlene in Stacy's family, "It's a family tradition, every second daughter is named Marlene after my great aunt." This seemed to be satisfactory to Hans, "Tonight was your first night, wasn't it, cousin?" Stacy added a bit too enthusiastically."

"Really?" Hans replied. He smiled at Private, "You did wonderfully for your opening night, Marlene." A drunken soldier who apparently knew Stacy appeared out of nowhere and Stacy was carried off into the crowd. "I haven't introduced myself: everyone here just calls me Hans." He smiled again, that same smile that had won Private over when he was playing the kind hearted general, and somehow that made Private angry. Hans was possibly the only person he'd never be able to feel any kind of compassion for, "May I buy you a drink?" Suddenly, without Kowalski or Nigel there to stop him, the sound of tasting his first champagne, dancing till dawn in and generally living the life Skipper always described (aside from being dressed as one of the girls rather than a patron) no longer sounded glamorous. He looked at Antonio appealingly, beginning to question what had possessed him to blackmail Kowalski into bringing him along.

"I assume Marlene will have her usual?" He spoke for Private. 'Marlene' replied hurriedly in the affirmative.

"There you are, Hans!" An unfamiliar face greeted, though Hans didn't seem particularly pleased to see the uniformed man. The newcomer turned to Antonio, "Bring it to my table." Already he was corralling Hans over to a table slightly off to the side, and Hans brought Private along, "So, who's the beautiful girl you've met?" He asked. One thing Private noticed prominently about him was how he hissed his 'S'es, almost like a snake. Hans introduced the man as 'Savio' and the conversation continued, the topics mundane and stereotypical.

"No sign of the Englishman, sir." Private just about jumped out of his skin for the second time that evening. He hadn't noticed the sergeant behind him, but Hans had noticed him jump.

"Don't look so worried, Marlene, he's not dangerous," Savio told him. Neither Savio nor Hans apparently seemed to recognize him, "He's really little more than an escaped high schooler; it's his associates that are the ones to be worried about."

"You'll pardon me talking business, Marlene." Hans spoke, saying something to the newcomer about searching the storerooms, then clocking off. The guard left and Private shivered as he felt Hans' arm around his shoulders.

"You honestly didn't think he's here, did you?" Savio commented.

"No, it was very unlikely." Hans admitted, "But we can't exactly search anywhere else at this hour without seeming suspicious." Savio concurred.

"And I assume you wanted to get away from the wife for a bit." Savio added with a knowing smile, "She still insists on following you everywhere, doesn't she, even though she's no longer…" He looked at Private, "you know." Apparently Hans was more similar to Skipper than Private had originally thought, since from his behaviour clearly he'd been cheating on Doris almost this whole time. He wondered when Marlene was going to realize that they'd likely been caught because Skipper had been a little too free with his words to some attractive blond. "You know, I'm surprised I heard the English spy was in this area before you."

"I suppose it had to happen sometime." Hans replied grudgingly. "Excuse me, Colonel, but I think Marlene would like to dance." Private wasn't sure if he wanted to dance or not, but there was something about Savio that definitely unnerved him, while with Hans he still found it hard to believe what he really was (though in some ways that made him worse) and also Hans wasn't giving him a choice. Private found him uncomfortably close, but he supposed it was better to have Hans interested in him because he considered him an attractive looking woman than because he was a very lost spy.

"Marlene! There you are!" Stacy appeared out of the crowd of other dancers briefly before she was pulled back in, "I've been looking all over for you. Remember, you have that early audition tomorrow, and you want to be at your best…" She'd then quickly whispered to Private to go to her house, her roommate would let her in, and stay there till Skipper arrived. Private immediately leapt at the excuse, looking regretfully at Hans and explaining apologetically that Stacy was right, this audition meant a lot to 'Marlene', and she had to go.

"That is a shame." Hans replied understandingly, ever making a mockery of a true gentleman, then glanced at his watch, "I suppose it's a good thing, it's about time I left too. Can I offer you a ride home?" Private went to turn it down, but realized he couldn't think of a good reason to refuse, and in fact it seemed safer to be driven back by Hans rather than possibly be stopped and caught without any papers

"That's very kind of you." Private thanked him and Becky quickly ran up with a coat that Hans helped him into before starting towards the door, making his excuses to Savio. He directed Private to a nondescript vehicle parked a short distance away. He held the door open for Private then got into the car himself and started off through the darkened town. The moment the engine started there was something in his demeanour Private felt change, though he'd said nothing and Private couldn't put his finger on what it was. The silence was driving him crazy.

"So, you said you did a lot of travel?" Private began.

"You know, I never believed you for one minute." Hans spoke and Private's blood turned to ice. "But I wanted to get you out of there without causing a scene and getting Savio involved." Private made a dive for the door only to find it locked. Hans was driving rather fast and he doubted he'd win in a fight, at least, not without sending the car off the road. "You won't get anything out of me." Private warned, though his voice wavered.

"I have no intention to try."


	16. The Truth

"I've checked with everyone." Stacy repeated, "Nobody's seen Private since Hans offered him a lift home." Skipper still didn't seem ready to accept this answer, "Nobody's seen Hans either since then – a friend of mine knows Savio fairly well and he hasn't seen him."

"But what I don't understand is why he'd want Private?" Marlene asked, "I mean, it's clearly not a trap for us because then we'd at least have been given a clue. Private doesn't know anything, Hans has no personal grudge against him, and aside from against Nigel he's no use as leverage."

"Perhaps dis Hans fellow was possess-ed by de angry sky spirits and…" Julian offered, but was quickly glared into silence, "Or not."

"I must say, it is a trifle fishy." Mason concurred. Phil signed something to him, "Phil thinks so too."

Kowalski had to say, all of this was going nowhere. There had to be some clue, Hans must have said something to someone or dropped something or was spotted by one of the townspeople. He was human, after all, even if at times it was hard to believe.

A soft tapping against the window next to which Kowalski leaned drew his attention to a familiar face. Kowalski scowled at the other scientist and motioned for him to get out of sight. Blowhole didn't seem inclined to go away, so Kowalski opened the window a fraction as if to get some fresh air and whispered to Blowhole to go to the back door and Kowalski would let him in.

"No record whatsoever." Blowhole informed, stepping out of the morning air, "No record of Hans even being in this area – I think he's supposed to be at the eastern front or something after that kidnapping incident – and that was from the few sources who even acknowledge he exists."

"So nobody's talking?"

"Nobody knows anything," Blowhole corrected, "Believe me, I called up people up to McSlade's level and at least 75% of them would be happy to see Hans killed by any means, even American agent. Clearly," Blowhole concluded, "either whatever he's up to is a higher clearance than my very high placed friends', or he's doing it on his own."

"Any news on his location?" Kowalski asked. Blowhole looked at him as if asking this were an insult to his intelligence.

"If I knew where he was you and Doris would be on the first boat to New York and 75% of my contacts would be a bit happier for the day."

Meanwhile, back in the main room of the closed café Skipper was still working on the question of motive. In fact, they'd come up with so many impossible – they still couldn't think of any possible– motives for Private's kidnapping that Skipper decided there was only one person in the room who could crunch that much data and return a concise analysis. However, that person, on a closer inspection, was not in the room.

"Anyone seen Kowalski?" Skipper asked.

"No, I thought he was standing over there." Marlene replied, voicing all their sentiments.

"You are not being much of a leader," Julian commented about as untactfully as it was possible to be, "You are losing your subordinate people, like… like…" He couldn't seem to think of a good metaphor, but if he did, Rico would probably punch him out.

Kowalski clearly hadn't gone out the front door because Antonio, standing at the bar, was looking directly at it. Skipper started for the other door that led into the behind the scenes of Antonio's establishment.

"That cushy science job's made him unacceptably insubordinate." Skipper spoke, throwing open the door and giving the others an apologetic glance. However, it appeared that the others were staring at him aghast, "What? It's true!" Marlene subtly hinted that he should look behind him, "Great tongue tied mackerel and herring!" He exclaimed, staring at the two scientists. The two scientists stared back at him and for several seconds they all just stared at each other.

"This isn't good, is it?" Blowhole finally spoke. Skipper decided then that he was angry.

"You're darned right it isn't."

* * *

"One of my own is a traitor." Skipper shook his head, "I never thought I'd see the day, and just after that poor kid gets himself caught by that psychopath on your watch. For all I know you handed him over to…!"

"That is not fair, Skipper!" Kowalski cut him off. He could take a lot of things from Skipper while working out a good way out of the situation, but that wasn't one of them. Skipper seemed to personally agree that it wasn't, but didn't withdraw the accusation. "Now if you'd just listen for a moment, Skipper," Kowalski continued, "you'd have already realized that I'm about as in league with Blowhole as the world is flat, and in fact, I was only using him."

"You were?" Blowhole commented. Kowalski kicked him, "I mean, you were only using me this whole time!?" He added more emphatically.

"Yes, Blowhole, I never had any intention to return Doris to you after you helped me find her."

"Well that doesn't really matter to me, all I care about is that she isn't with…" Kowalski kicked him again, "I mean, how dare you attempt to steal my sister!?" Clearly, despite how much Blowhole purported to know about his arch enemy, he obviously didn't know how Skipper thought. Skipper could only see the world in black and white, good guys and bad guys. He wouldn't be able to understand the grey area nature of their arrangement, and would brand them both villains.

"My gut doesn't like this." Skipper countered, scrutinizing the two intently. Sensing what was in all probability coming next, Rico produced a wrench and some wire cutters suitable for cutting break lines in one hand and a hunting knife in the other, holding them as if to ask "accident or plain and simple"?

"Whatever you choose, would you please not do it in my café?" Antonio requested.

"Really? You're thinking of that already?" Kowalski snapped, and Rico guiltily put the weapons away until Skipper reminded him that his superior officer had not get given him permission to do so, "Come on, guys, I'm part of the team!"

"Was." Skipper corrected.

"Can you at least give him a chance to prove his innocence?" Blowhole pleaded.

"Sure, you have sixty seconds." Marlene replied coldly, noting the position of her watch's second hand.

"With a clipboard?" Blowhole requested. His request was denied. Clipboard-less and looking his impending doom right in the eye (because Rico was still holding it in front of him) thoughts and half-baked plans whirled around the scientist's mind like a sand storm. Kowalski, however, didn't seem quite as panicked.

"Skipper, there is one sure fire way to know if I'm telling the truth." Kowalski spoke, "You know I hate using it," He grimaced, "but I have a spare bottle of my improved truth serum in the left inside pocket of my coat." Skipper considered this for a moment, then nodded.

"Becky, Stacy, watch the traitors." Marlene ordered, then cut Skipper off before he could even speak, "Yes Skipper, us women are capable of shooting them if they move too." The door shut after her, and Becky and Stacy gave the two scientists a warning look.

"Kowalski!" Blowhole whispered, "That truth serum's going to reveal we were lying!" Kowalski smiled and shook his head.

"Situations like these aren't quite unheard of when you have a paranoid leader like Skipper who won't go to sleep without a pistol under his pillow in case the space squids invade and who's first thought is that all accepted scientific data is, I quote, "some kind of wacked-out conspiracy"." He looked to check that Becky and Stacy didn't appear to be able to hear their conversation. Stacy ventured a step closer, but Blowhole and Kowalski immediately went silent. Stacy stepped back, and the two contented themselves with trying to unsuccessfully read their lips from the far corner. "The only thing you'll find in that bottle is sterile saline and all you have to do is answer the first few questions with fake embarrassing replies, repeat your old story, then look confused and say 'where am I?'. The 'truth serum' trick works every time."

"So you actually haven't developed an improved truth serum?" Blowhole commented. "I'd call that academic dishonesty…"

"No, I have, it's just in my right pocket." The two scientists grinned deviously, revelling in their superior intellects, before a few seconds later the door opened and Skipper entered. Well, he entered and after Kowalski and Blowhole were split up to prevent them from comparing notes quickly beforehand (which they already had) walked back out saying he'd rather not be in the room when needles were brandished, assigning Marlene to administer the harmless injection to Blowhole. He followed Kowalski's simple instructions to the letter, the most difficult thing being not to laugh as they all took it so comically seriously.

"Marlene," Antonio spoke as Blowhole 'drifted into unconsciousness' since that seemed like the melodramatic thing to do, "What do you think of that painting?"

"What painting?" Marlene asked, preparing for her next victim.

"That one." Antonio's arm extended from his side to point to a decisively ugly portrait leaning against some crates. However, half way to its target it collided with Marlene's hand. The small glass bottle was knocked from her fingers. She made a desperate grab for it as it tumbled through the air, and it seemed to balance for a moment on her index finger before it slipped through her fingers and shattered on the floor.

"What was that?" Skipper asked, poking his head into the room.

"I just dropped the bottle of truth serum!" Marlene exclaimed in annoyance as Phil and Mason began to sweep up the pieces. Then a new thought occurred to her, "Wait, wasn't there another bottle labelled 'truth serum two' in Kowalski's other pocket?" Gleefully, Marlene left the room to retrieve the second and very real bottle as Kowalski was brought in and put back in his old seat.

"Kowalski!" Blowhole whispered.

"Shh! You're semi-conscious!" Kowalski hissed back.

"But…!"

"Shhh!" It was amazing Skipper still hadn't heard them. Blowhole was about to risk having Skipper hear them when Marlene re-entered the room. Calmly, and completely unaware of the danger that lay ahead Kowalski sat back and accepted a very real dose of truth serum. Blowhole hoped against hope that Kowalski had gotten his placebos and specimens mixed up again and brought two fakes, but this was proven untrue as Kowalski suddenly seemed to realize that he was feeling strange, but by then it was too late.

"Can you hear me, Kowalski?" Skipper spoke.

"Yes, Skipper?" Kowalski replied. Blowhole tried not to wince because that wouldn't be very becoming of a drugged prisoner.

"Kowalski," Skipper continued, "How long have you had that tattoo of Doris on your…" He opted to leave that last part out on the off chance Kowalski was innocent. "And how long have you been trying to remove it?"

"Since two weeks after we escaped, and I've been trying to remove it since Maurice posted my physical description including an artist's rendition of the tattoo and I barely got it down before the whole Zoo found out."

"Kowalski, ask Blowhole an awkward question." Marlene ordered.

"Who have you had a crush on since we landed?" Kowalski asked. Blowhole felt himself blushing, but remembered people drugged on truth serum didn't blush or swallow nervously.

"Kitka." Blowhole forced himself to speak, "S… Since she had to kiss me to hide form Kazoo." Thankfully, nobody present seemed to have any idea who he was talking about, and Kowalski hopefully wouldn't remember a thing.

"Alright, Blowhole, why were you and Kowalski speaking to each other on non-hostile terms?" Blowhole almost sighed with relief that Skipper had asked him the question instead of Kowalski. "What was your relationship to my lieutenant?"

"I believed that Kowalski was attempting to assist me in rescuing my sister, in exchange for not publicizing the location of his tattoo to his colleagues." Blowhole answered, "However now I know that Kowalski was merely using me and intended to take her back to America, we are once again enemies." Skipper seemed satisfied with that answer. Hopefully Kowalski would think of a way to get him out after saving his skin.

"How long were you and Kowalski working together?" Judging by his tone, Skipper wanted it to be a very short time.

"The last twenty four hours. He bumped into me while he was searching for Private..."

"That is inaccurate," Kowalski interrupted and all eyes turned on him. Blowhole would probably have strangled him if his hands weren't tied down. "Inaccuracy no. 1: I was not blackmailed into assisting in the search for Doris. Inaccuracy no. 2: Dr Blowhole was aware the entire time that I intended to take her to America and supported the idea.; his only interest is that Doris is separated from Hans. Inaccuracy no. 3: I have been working with Dr Blowhole since the day he crash landed in England. On my orders he has been secretly following us this whole time." Skipper looked completely outraged. His eyes narrowed.

"Do you consider each other enemies?"

"Yes!" Blowhole quickly replied.

"No." Countered Kowalski, "We have agreed to put our differences aside to work for our common goal of rescuing Doris. And," Blowhole couldn't wish for anything more than for Kowalski to shut up right now. Kowalski faltered, and Blowhole wondered if his wish was going to come true.

"And?"

"And I have come to recognize that for all the evil he has done there is also a lot of good in him that I can would like to encourage and I believe that Blowhole has also come to see me in a similarly friendly light." Skipper looked ready to give the order to get rid of the both of them right then and there, but Marlene seemed oddly sympathetic.

"Kowalski, did Private know Blowhole was working with you?" Marlene asked.

"Yes." Kowalski replied, "He encouraged it."

"Because he's a naive kid." Skipper muttered.

"Kowalski, what was Blowhole's reaction to Private's abduction?" Marlene pressed.

"Dr Blowhole assisted in the search and used as many of his resources as he could to attempt to locate them. Being aware of Hans' abilities he did not want to see Private at the mercy of him." Well, that wasn't strictly true, it was more that he knew that Hans would be wherever Private was and Doris would be wherever Hans was. But Blowhole could see Skipper's eyes soften. "When you interrupted us he was giving me his report on the results of these investigations."

"Kowalski, do you think that Dr Blowhole would be valuable in our search for Private?" Antonio asked sceptically.

"Yes, I do." Kowalski replied, "He has contacts and resources available that would be invaluable and I will personally vouch for his dedication and honesty." All eyes, except those under the influence of or pretending to be under the influence of truth serum, turned to Skipper. Their verdict was unanimous.

"Untie them."


	17. McSlade's Offer

"Alright, Blowhole, make yourself useful." Skipper grumbled reluctantly, "What have you got for us?"

"Well, actually, Skipper," Kowalski began uncomfortably, "he came here to tell me that…"

"To tell him that I think I have a lead." Blowhole interrupted, finally getting to kick Kowalski under the table. "A friend of mine is looking up a friend of a friend who we think knows where Hans is." His response was specifically crafted to be vague enough that Skipper wouldn't be able to ask too many detailed questions. "By the way," he pointed behind Skipper, "I think Antonio wants to talk to you."

"Skipper, you'd better get over to the radio!" Antonio reported excitedly the moment Skipper's attention was on him, "It's Private!"

"Well what were you just standing there for?!" Skipper demanded, racing after Antonio to the hidden radio.

"He specifically said not to bother you if you were busy." Antonio answered.

"Typical Private," Skipper muttered as he climbed the stairs two at a time, "He'd put good manners before saving his own life." He grabbed the microphone frantically from Stacy, "Private, can you hear me?! It's Skipper!" For a moment there was just empty air.

"Sk…pper?" The radio suddenly crackled, barely audible, but Skipper was just able to make out the faint voice over the background noise, "Sk…ppe…, … can't hear y… very… ell. …s that…ou?"

"Affirmative." He replied, "Private,…"

"…pper, …u've got t..et me out…f here!"

"Private, are you alright? Where are you?"

"…m…f… r…n…i…d…k…o…" The radio crackled unintelligibly.

"Could you repeat that?"

"…m going t…ry to see… can make this s…clearer…" Private did something on his end that suddenly made the audio pretty clear. At least he was likely close by. "Can you hear me now, Skipper?"

"Loud and clear Private." Skipper replied hurriedly, "Are you alright? Where are you?" He repeated.

"I managed to sneak off and grab Hans' radio while he's distracted – Skipper, you've got to get me out of here, Hans is flying me out of the country tomorrow, I don't know where, but…"

"Doris?" Skipper heard a voice in the background he unfortunately recognized call. Private trailed off into a tense silence, "Doris, get the boy off my radio, he's been on there long enough."

"Why not Barry?" Replied Doris, clearly stalling for time for Private's sake.

"Private," Skipper interrupted, "you have to tell me where you are, if anything. Where are you?!"

"I don't know…" Click. Static.

The whole room was silent for a moment, and Skipper seemed to be having another one of his uncharacteristicly thoughtful spells like he had before he'd deduced the answer to the riddle of who was their missing contact.

"Alright," Skipper at last spoke, taking control of the situation, "Blowhole, chase down that friend of a friend of a friend of yours. Rico, commandeer me another car – not a civilian one if you can – and get it ready for a bit of a drive. Kowalski, make Captain Knife some papers, write an introduction letter from someone who'd write an introduction letter that gives him a bit of a colourful record – more than a little ruthless, but always obeys orders no matter what. Phil, Mason and Julian, I need you two to head back to the resistance and set up a communications post to send Nigel regular updates. The rest of you, help them out." Skipper then ordered Antonio to show him the nearest phone then sent him away to fetch supplies for Kowalski.

From then on Skipper would barely say a word about the operation. When Kowalski asked, as he hurriedly altered an existing real piece of identification to work for Skipper, what Skipper was up to all he did was grin and say something cryptic Kowalski couldn't make heads or tails of. Making unintelligible remarks that would eventually, hopefully, amount to something was Kowalski's thing, but Skipper seemed determined to try it out too. After Rico procured the car Skipper bundled the team, Marlene and Blowhole into it but wouldn't say a word about where they were headed till they were half way there.

"Remember that job McSlade said I should apply for?" Skipper finally spoke.

"'Eah?" Rico replied.

"Well, the plan's pretty simple, but that's the brilliant part of it," Skipper continued nonchalantly, "I apply for the job, if I'm gonna take the job Hans is gonna have to send me out to wherever he is to take a look at me and there we have him." He waited for the torrent of impressed comments, but none came. The silence was also distinctly unlike the awed speechlessness he was expecting as well.

"Skipper," Kowalski spoke slowly, "Just to clarify, once Hans sees you, he will recognize you."

"Of course." Skipper replied as if he was surprised his genius lieutenant was stuck on such a simple fact, "But it won't matter then, I've already found them."

"But Skipper," Marlene continued, catching on to Kowalski's train of thought, "What if he's keeping Private somewhere else or if he meets you somewhere other than his base of operations?"

"Then we make him tell us where Private is, and if he won't, we're already in the general area."

"Kno'in' Hans, he ga' ord'rs ta shoot th' kid 'f he don' come back." Rico pointed out.

"Okay, maybe _I_ won't do it, Kowalski, how about you?"

"McSlade's offered the job to Captain Knife and I'm an inspector, remember?" Kowalski pointed out. "I have no papers either."

"What about Blowhole, then?" Skipper replied, somewhat exasperatedly, "He's the most convenient enemy officer we have available."

"I'm his brother in law," Blowhole countered, then briefly winced as if this were a painful statement to make, "and whatever disguise you put me in this eye of mine is still missing." He added. "Bet you didn't think of that when you shot it out."

"I guess we should turn around, head back and think of a new plan." Marlene concluded. "We'll come up with an excuse for McSlade." Everyone seemed to be in agreement with this except for Blowhole.

"No, I think this is the best idea we have for now." Blowhole stated, "None of you have any other ideas and this is definitely better than Kazoo's suggestion that I continue tracking her extravagant expenditures – if there's one thing I have to say I was glad to unload my little sister onto Hans for, it was how much money she spent. Anyway," he returned to the topic at hand, "like Private said, he's going to be flown out of the country tomorrow evening, we can't waste any time."

"We could check all his last known locations?" Kowalski suggested somewhat weakly.

"Hans is too smart to go back to any of his old haunts." Blowhole countered.

"Alright, so we stick with this plan, just modify it a little." Skipper concluded, "Kowalski, give me some options…"

* * *

"This plane will fly us to this abandoned airfield he specified on the phone." McSlade spoke as the two men walked in the direction of their transport, "The Dart Frog will look over your credentials and make sure you are who you say you are, and then take you to Hans. Standard procedure for him, apparently. I'll have no idea where you are, though, so be careful." McSlade added in warning. "Both of them have a bit of a reputation for being unstable."

"Yes, sir." Skipper replied.

"Oh, by the way." McSlade continued, "Do you know him already?" Skipper frowned.

"No, sir, only from what you've told me and by reputation."

"Hm." McSlade mused, "He said your name was familiar, that you might have met before."

"Can't say I have." Skipper answered.

"What do you suppose he's up to?" McSlade asked as they stepped out onto the tarmac and he paused. "He wants a competent pilot who can pass as American, apparently to put some spy or another 'more at ease', I think he put it."

"Yes, sir, you told me this a while ago when you suggested the job." Skipper replied.

"And Knife, I want you to keep an eye on him while you're out there." McSlade spoke as they started towards the plane, "I can't say I like him very much, he's ambitious and now he's desperate trying to salvage his reputation after that hostage incident. He's unstable and I don't like that. If something unfortunate should happen…" Skipper nodded.

"If I get the opportunity." Skipper agreed and the two were about to board the plane when Pinky ran up to them.

"I'm glad I caught you!" he called breathlessly, "You're heading my way, right?" He already knew the answer, the purpose of the question as clearly to seek an offer for a lift, "Can I trouble you to add one extra stop after you've dropped off Knife?"

"Sure." McSlade replied. The three men boarded the plane, McSlade taking a seat near the front while Skipper continued down to a window seat at the back and Pinky sat down next to him. A short flight spent in silence later the plane landed at a disused airfield and Captain Knife got out, followed by Pinky who gave him a hand with getting his bags. Knife followed McSlade out of the plane, pulling his coat tighter around him while Pinky resumed his seat by the window.


	18. Pinky's Mission

Pinky let McSlade disembark first and cast one last nervous look back at Skipper before following.

"Keep your back to McSlade, remember those phrases I taught you," Skipper called, his voice masked from McSlade by the noise of the engines. Pinky still looked doubtful, "Find out where the kid is or Mrs Pinky sees those photographs." Pinky winced and climbed down the steps onto the abandoned landing strip, pulling Skipper's coat and hat closer around him. McSlade, fortunately, seemed to have concluded his business with the two men standing by a car and was turning back to board the plane. Pinky chose that moment to glance in the opposite direction to take in their surroundings as McSlade passed behind him and back towards the plane.

"You over there." One of the men standing by the car, a short fellow with a shock of red hair and an expression like the local high school bully with a more sinister note called.

"Yes sir!" Pinky barked, stepping up at attention. He rattled off Captain Knife's name and unit, his mind almost blank with fear but fortunately his knee jerk reaction Kowalski had made sure was to repeat the first of the phrases drilled into him.

"May I see your papers, Captain Knife?" the man replied and Pinky handed them over, hoping Kowalski's claims of being the best forger he'd ever meet were not exaggerated. They likely were, but he was good enough to be convincing.

"Get in the car, we're going for a short drive." The man who Pinky now recognised (mostly by acquaintances' descriptions of his voice and manner) as the Dart Frog spoke. Pinky did as he was told without question and very little was said for the entire short drive. The Dart Frog tried to surprise them with a few phrases in English to test his cultural and linguistic proficiency, but they were exactly the ones Kowalski predicted, and after spending three hours being trained nonstop to give certain automatic replies on pain of Kowalski's marble jar – he remembered that cruel insatiable thirst he'd unexplainably had to fill that jar – it was no surprise that he passed with flying colours without so much as having to think.

The car stopped outside a war-damaged country retreat that at some time might have been quite charming. He was led inside and told to wait in a stripped down corridor while the dart frog entered the next room. A few seconds later he remerged and motioned for Pinky to enter before leaving to conduct other business.

"Captain Knife." A man seated behind a desk that looked small and at the same time controlling in the centre of the large room aknowlaged. He paused, summing Pinky up, then motioned for him to step up to the desk, "You know, you're not at all how I imagined you. For some reason I thought we'd met before, but that was another fellow named _Private_ Knife – he was an American POW." Pinky couldn't think what else to do, so nodded. "So," Hans continued, picking up a piece of paper from the desk and briefly skimming it. Pinky had to say, from Skipper's description, Hans wasn't what he'd expected either. He'd expected an eye patch like Blowhole, or maybe an ominous looking scar or a chilling limp, but he just looked like a normal guy who looked a bit like Skipper even. Pinky satisfied his need to find a category for the villain by deciding he was Skipper's evil identical opposite. That wasn't strictly true, but it would do for the present. "You have an interesting record."

"Yes sir." Pinky replied.

"Let's start at the beginning. I hear you studied in America. What did you study and how did you find it there?" He'd switched to English, which Pinky took as his cue to play American.

"Studied the classics at Columbia, sir." Pinky replied watching intently for any sign of disbelief as he cautiously tried out his American pronunciation. Kowalski had chosen that topic since it was one he doubted Hans knew anything on, "It was a swell place, sir, but not really my kinda thing." Maybe the 'swell' was a bit much, but if this went wrong he could still blame Kowalski since he'd preprepared the sentences. For all the good it would do him.

"And you returned to Berlin half way through your studies in '37?"

"Yes sir."

"You have an interesting military record too," Hans continued, "What do you have to say about that incident three years ago?"

"I was following my commanding officer's orders, sir." Pinky replied, remembering to add that hint of enjoyment, "He said to dispose of the prisoners after we'd extracted all they were likely to give us."

"Your method was a little unorthodox." Hans spoke.

"It did the job and fit the parameters of his orders." Pinky replied defensively, and trying to look like he had no moral qualms. Hans shrugged and continued.

"Your record indicates you are qualified to perform the technical aspects of the task. It's quite simple, really. The only thing is…" He paused, summing Pinky up, "Captain Knife, you may be required to deal with a minor on this assignment, well, he claims he's eighteen, but I doubt he's older than sixteen, at least mentally. Will you have a problem with that?"

"No problems whatsoever, sir." Pinky replied with another hint of a smile as if this were an aspect he might enjoy. Hans nodded as if the question was merely a formality, no more than asking his place of birth."

"And…" Hans went to continue, but was interrupted by a ringing phone. "Yes?" He answered, "McSlade…? He followed you here…?" he covered the receiver with his hand. "That will be all, Captain." He ordered and Pinky walked back to the door, "…Well, what can you do to stop him…? Yes, let him…" the Dart Frog shut the door between them.

"Come with me." He ordered, taking Pinky to another room near the front door and instructed him to wait for further instructions as Pinky heard a car pull up outside and McSlade enter, heading directly to Hans' office.

At first Pinky did absolutely nothing. Kowalski hadn't briefed him on McSlade coming back. Had McSlade realized the switch? It wasn't all that unlikely, if McSlade had attempted to speak to 'Pinky' instead of remaining engrossed in the urgent paperwork Kowalski had arranged for him. At first he was tempted to run, but if he ran and he hadn't really been found out he stood a good chance of being shot and certainly would be found out. And even if he talked his way out of this, any kind of investigation would bring out his involvement with the black market. Pinky had to know if he was going to be found out or not.

He saw Barry walk past him and out the door to deal with some other newcomer and Pinky saw his chance. He stealthily crept back down the hall, cautiously returning to the waiting area outside Hans' office.

"…I'm not stupid, Hans, I worked it out." Pinky was just able to make out. He crept closer to the door, as close as he could manage whilst still retaining proximity to an excuse for being there or at least a less suspicious position to be plausibly waiting for Hans' attention in. The conversation became inaudible and Pinky leaned closer to the door.

"Well I know exactly what he's up to, but I've found its always safest to assume with you that you don't." Hans replied more than slightly sarcastically. From what followed, though Pinky couldn't make out the exact words, McSlade clearly didn't take too kindly to it, "…Either you can take care of your own or I can, but I'm not…" McSlade interrupted, but Hans talked over him, "And I sincerely hope you procrastinate over the problem long enough that you leave me no choice but to step in, because, believe me, I will enjoy it…"

Pinky's first instinct was to run, but already he could see Barry mounting the steps just before the front door with the new guy from the car. At first Pinky faltered, he could hear them still talking inside, everything was falling apart…!

Pinky threw open the doors with a bang, stumbling into the office much to the surprise of both men.

"I'll talk! I'll tell you everything!" Pinky half sobbed, "They made me do it! I had no choice!"

"Go on." Hans replied calmly as if he knew already, which from his conversation he evidently did.

"Pinky, what are you doing here?" McSlade demanded. Hans looked at McSlade.

"I said I'd tell you everything, just be lenient!" Pinky pleaded, "I was sent here by that science guy and Captain Knife and his girlfriend and that psycho friend of his – they were all in on it! I was supposed to get the job as the pilot and use that to get close to Hans to find out where he has the boy. I swapped coats with Knife on the plane and nobody noticed…"

"Definitely sounds like Skipper and his team." Hans concluded.

"Wait, Knife is Skipper?" McSlade questioned.

"Yes, that's one of his many aliases." Hans answered, "So I'm guessing this Pinky fellow, as you called him, is one of your men?"

"Wait, you didn't know?" Pinky questioned, "You didn't already know about all this? You looked like you did?"

"What did I have to gain by admitting I didn't?" He had a good point, "Well, this is an interesting turn of events, it doesn't matter though, he wasn't what I wanted anyway." Hans concluded, "Back to the matter at hand, like I said, I know exactly what Savio's up to claiming that I have the boy…"

"Pinky just said Skipper knows you have the boy!" McSlade protested.

"Well I don't, I'm just the most obvious guess, but I'm still looking for him." Hans countered, "Savio's just trying to find excuses to explain why he isn't able to turn out results. Since it's no secret you don't like me, I'm the best candidate. Deal with him, stop him from annoying me, or I will."

"I know you're up to something…" McSlade growled, but the line of argument was futile: Hans firmly denied that he had Private. Finally, just as Pinky was starting to wonder if he snuck out of the room if anyone would notice, McSlade turned to him, "What about him?"

"Well…"Hans started dismissively.

"Wait, I know more, I know where Skipper is!" Pinky interrupted. Now he had their attention, and hopefully their clemency, "He's hiding in that old mansion by the cliffs."

"I know the one you mean." Hans replied, "Barry!" He yelled down the corridor.

"He had photographs, he was going to use them, I was trying to find a way to warn you…" This seemed to hit closer to home with McSlade, though Hans seemed to have lost all interest in him on hearing Skipper's location.

"What about Pinky?" McSlade repeated.

"Oh, do with him as you see fit, I don't care." Hans replied distractedly as Barry appeared in the door.

"Barry, Skipper's in the old stone house, you know, the one by the cliffs." He spoke, "Take your best men and take them alive." He seemed to change his mind, "Or just Skipper, if it's convenient." Barry grinned.

"Yes, sir."

"Go on, I'm busy." Hans prompted when Barry got a little too absorbed in his fantasizing. McSlade glanced at his watch, then at Pinky, "Go back to your little castle, McSlade, I'll send him over." McSlade nodded and left. Pinky remained in uncomfortable silence before Hans told Barry to drop him off with someone on his way out. Barry immediately complied and Pinky was led out of the room.

"Barry." A woman interrupted when they were half down the corridor. She said something else to Hans' second in command, but it was lost to Pinky because something much less mundane had caught his eye. Through an open window he could see a side door outside of which a car was parked and the man he'd seen earlier, apparently the one who'd gotten the job, was leading a boy who fit Private's description towards it. The boy was seemingly physically unharmed and unrestrained, but he was pale and looked worried.

"Anything else before we go, sir?" The man questioned.

"I don't suppose you could let me go?" The boy asked slightly hopefully, apparently retaining a macabre sense of humour.

"No, sir I'm afraid I can't."

"Worth a try, I suppose." Private replied wistfully, "No, nothing else, thank you Parker." He replied in a voice at home with ordering servants around.

"Very good, sir." He opened the door and the boy reluctantly stepped into the car, the door locking after he climbed in.

"Come on!" Barry barked and Pinky was marched out of the building.


	19. Circumstantial Evidence

"…Are you sure Skipper won't find out about this…?" That line always caught Skipper's attention. What caught his attention more, though, was that it was Marlene's voice that said it.

"94.734% certain." Kowalski Skipper heard Kowalski reply through the door of the lab. "I double checked, he went into town ten minutes ago." Sure he had, then he'd come back because he'd realized he was short a few francs and wanted to borrow some from Kowalski. "Just like last time." Skipper crept closer to the closed door of the lab, listening. Somehow this didn't sound like the last time Marlene had tried unsuccessfully to throw him a surprise party.

"Thanks."

"You know, you're a very brave girl going through all this and still staying you. I can really admire that."

"Is this the part where I'm supposed to reply that you're a brilliant genius I'm privileged to work alongside?"

"Probably, yes." Kowalski replied, his tone making it apparent he was trying to sound humorous, "Because I am."

"Alright, you're a brilliant genius I'm privileged to work alongside, your self esteem feel better?" Marlene chuckled, "Hey, Skipper's not going to be in town forever…"

Skipper opened the door slowly, a hundred explanations rushing through his mind – he'd thought of most of them already in some of his more paranoid moments. What he saw was possible one of the worst of them (aside from the one where Marlene had been brainwashed by Hans into turning on the team).

"Skipper!" Marlene gasped. Kowalski had a very similar expression on his face was when he'd been caught with Blowhole. Skipper's eyes narrowed.

"Kowalski. Outside. Now."

"Sir, this isn't what it looks like…"

"Outside. Now." Kowalski looked uncomfortably back at Marlene before nodding and following Skipper quietly. "Rico, keep an eye on her." Skipper stormed out of the heavy oak front door and then slammed it shut behind them.

"Skipper, if you'd give me a chance, I'll explain everything…"

"I trusted you. Literally, the day before yesterday, I trusted you after I caught you conversing in a friendly manner with my arch enemy. I'm a pretty forgiving guy, clearly, even if you say I'm paranoid behind my back." Kowalski opened his mouth to speak, but Skipper continued, "Now I walk in on you flirting with my girlfriend - and apparently this is a regular thing."

"Listen, Skipper, after what she went through with Hans, she was damaged, and…"

"I get it." Skipper cut him off. His eyes locked onto the ground, "I think I understand all of it now."

"Thank you, Skipper, I'm relieved that you understand that…"

"Do you care about her?" Skipper spoke, looking him in the eye with a steely gaze.

"Of course!" Kowalski replied, then immediately realized how it sounded, "I… I mean, not like you thought I just meant it..."

"I'm not deaf, Kowalski. Catch." Skipper's backup pistol landed in his hands, but quickly slipped through his nervous fingers. "Pick it up, lieutenant." He ordered coldly. Kowalski cautiously looked down at the weapon on the ground. It was the pistol he'd take off Hans' as a kind of souvenir after he'd saved Kowalski's life in the woods. He wondered if Skipper meant something by that. Skipper took a few steps away from the house out into the field that fronted it for miles, then turned so he was facing the thin woods on the left side of the building, "Ten paces. You can count, you'll need the edge, and then we fire."

"Skipper!?" Kowalski exclaimed.

"It's simple. Pick up the gun. Walk ten paces. Fire. The one still alive gets the girl."

"Are you challenging me to a duel?" Kowalski replied in disbelief. "What is this, a scene from Private's Shakespeare in the park…?"

"Easiest way to settle this." Skipper replied, "We're both wrong. You betrayed your best friend, I let it happen because I wasn't there for her enough after what happened to her. Maybe we'll both kill each other…"

"Skipper, you aren't seriously…" Skipper was deadly serious. Suddenly Kowalski's eyes widened, "Great sub-atomic particles!" He exclaimed and turned running back to the house.

"Coward!" Skipper snapped, firing a shot at the doorway, missing Kowalski by miles before Kowalski successfully ducked into the house. It was only then that it occurred to Skipper that Kowalski had been looking past him, not at him when he'd seen whatever had made him run. A very curious pair of binoculars was staring at him out of a bush. And about half a dozen more pairs that he saw immediately afterwards. They didn't look like British commandos.

"Skipper, get inside!" Kowalski shouted, cautiously opening the door a crack. Skipper dived through and bolted the door just as their mysterious friends in the bushes finally decided to open fire.

* * *

"Rico?" Rico just stared impassively at the wall. The disappointment was clear on his expression. He hadn't said anything since he walked in the room, but Marlene knew if he did speak he'd be saying something along the lines of 'how could you?'. "Rico, it wasn't what it looked like." Rico just scoffed, "Let me explain…"

"Nothin' t' explain." Rico interrupted.

"Listen, Skipper's…" Rico turned to face the wall, which was more symbolic than effective, since obscuring his vision would have no impact on his hearing her, but the message was clear.

"I don' wan' t' 'et invol'ed." He interrupted. Marlene stood up and walked over to the window, so she could at least see his face from the side.

"I know you think you've heard it all before, that I couldn't throw you a line that you couldn't already recite backward, but there is another explanation." Rico said nothing. "Sometimes Skipper can get a bit overprotective of women in general... No, look, a lot of stuff happened when Hans was trying to get us to talk. First it was the traditional methods, but he was just using those to find out what made us tick." Slowly, Rico acknowledged her enough to look at her, "After that he went after Skipper, which naturally meant the bad stuff happened to me, because Skipper cared about me. That was before he realized I was actually the weaker link. The idea of leaving Skipper to bleed out, it came from me, in a way. It was about half way through, he'd been going at thirty six hours straight, he was more than a little mad that Skipper had drifted off into unconsciousness, and the knife slipped out of his hand. It…" Suddenly Rico drew his weapon, pointed it right at her, and fired.

Blood spattered the back of Marlene's shirt, followed by a yell of agony behind her as one of what she had no doubt was one of Hans' men fell down from the window ledge he'd climbed up on and tumbled down the side of the house and down the cliffs below.

"Story ca' wait." Rico barked, slamming the window shut, though that wouldn't do much to stop the others scaling the wall. Immediately he started towards the door, opening it long enough to see the Dart Frog and half a dozen others of the one he'd just shot advancing through the front door towards them. They were surrounded.

* * *

Skipper saw Kowalski running down the hallway towards the lab, but already he could see it was in flames, what were clearly toxic fumes he didn't want to breathe in filtering out.

"Kowalski!" Skipper yelled. Kowalski looked behind him then quickly ducked into another corridor, exchanging a few shots with the remaining intruders that hadn't been wiped out by the explosion. Marlene was all Skipper could think of. If he hadn't left with Kowalski – correction, if Kowalski hadn't made him leave – he might have saved her and Rico.

"Skipper, I've found a way out!" Kowalski called from further down the corridor. Skipper cut through another room that ran parallel. Kowalski apparently seemed to be staring at a wooden cupboard full of china and silverware and some deep scratches next to it. "It's a secret door, help me look for a way to open it. One of us needs to stay alive to save Private." Skipper grudgingly approached, providing covering fire as Kowalski examined the furniture.

"How do you know it's a hidden door?" Skipper asked.

"Why are there such deep grooves in the floor next to a case full of china and silverware?"

"Someone moved it." Skipper replied.

"No, judging from the scratches, they aren't exactly centuries old like the rest of the house, probably from the start of the war, this was used maybe once or twice, but they're deep, too deep for it to have been moved whilst empty, ergo, it was slid from point A to point B whilst full of china and silverware, which nobody would do in their right mind unless it's all a fake. Why have a fake china cabinet that moves? It's the entrance to a… Eureka!" The cabinet slid open, "For those of us who aren't well versed in ancient Greek that means, I've found it…" It was then that Kowalski realized he'd probably just outlived his usefulness and raced down the spiral staircase behind it three at a time. Sure enough, Skipper unfortunately quickly proved right his assumptions.

"This doesn't change anything, Kowalski!" skipper shouted down the stairs, firing down after the fleeing scientist.

"Shut the door, after you, shut the door!" Kowalski yelled back. Kowalski had a point. Skipper stared at the intricate mechanism. As much as he hated to say this, but…

"Kowalski, how do I shut this thing?" He shouted, half expecting to receive no reply.

"It's simple," that always meant it was complicated, "you want to look for a switch, it should be opposite the main spring that powers the mechanism, but be careful not to trip the alarm mechanism, so remember to avoid setting off the trip wire which will be just behind the…" There was a gigantic crash as Skipper slashed the cable that seemed like the most important one and the china crashed back into place. "I suppose that would work too," Kowalski muttered, before continuing down the stairs, "As long as there isn't an ambush down there. That door's not going to open any time soon." Skipper was still chasing him.

Kowalski hit the bottom of the stairs and ducked behind a section of wall.

"Skipper, if you would just slow down, we can talk this out…!" He called up the stairs. There was a slight pause.

"Yes, Kowalski, I guess everyone's entitled to a bad week and a chance to explain it."

"Yeah…" Kowalski began, relived despite hearing Skipper's slow approach in the darkness.

"Unless that person teamed up with my worst enemy, got Private kidnapped by Hans because of some petty lab grudge and then stole my girlfriend all in the same week." Two more gunshots missed him.

"Why does the circumstantial evidence always have to frame me?" He mourned before a third shot confirmed the fact Skipper was tracking his voice. Fortunately, Skipper had to pause to re-load and Kowalski took the opportunity to keep running – anywhere.

"Kowalski, you disgrace to the unit, get back here!" Skipper shouted. Kowalski's hands hit a solid wall.

"Listen, Skipper, I know what you saw," Kowalski began feeling his way along the wall, "but…" There was a creaking sound for a split second, then suddenly the rotting boards disintegrated beneath him and Kowalski tumbled relatively unharmed into the room below. The good news was, he was safe, temporarily from Skipper. The bad news? He'd just landed right in front of the Dart Frog.


	20. Escape

"No, it can't wait!" Marlene interrupted and Rico looked at her as if she'd completely lost her mind, "I want to make sure if I don't make it that Skipper knows there is nothing between me and Kowalski."

"I thin' one a us ain' gonna make 't 'cause y' 'nsist'd on tellin' me." Rico grumbled, pacing the lab, looking for anything. He knew he didn't have enough ammunition to take on at least twenty men, and those were only the ones he'd seen.

"I know Skipper thinks he means well, but I can take care of myself, I've been taking care of myself just fine for years before I met him – I only started getting caught when I met him. In fact… Hey, look at this." Marlene grabbed a beaker off the lab surface and threw it on the floor, "grab that one over there," She pointed to a test tube, "throw it on the floor there." Rico shrugged and did as he was told. Almost immediately there was a hiss and the section of floor where the chemicals had spilled started to disintegrate before their eyes. "Got a rope?" Rico produced a length of rope, rolling his eyes as if to say 'ask a stupid question…' He didn't get long enough to reply because suddenly there was the sound of shattering glass and several shots were fired into the room before Rico disposed of the shooter.

"Go!" he ordered. Marlene didn't have time to secure the rope, but jumped down regardless, aiming for the pile of straw that inhabited part of the storeroom. Rico quickly followed just after pouring a bluish liquid into an orange one. Immediately thick green smoke began to rise from the reaction just as the door was broken down. They stumbled out of the storeroom, shutting the door behind them.

"How'd you know that would do that?" Marlene asked.

"'ee keep all th' stuff tha' react 'ost dang'rously t'gether. Watch' lotta 'is acciden's." Rico replied. "oo?"

"Same." Marlene replied, "How do we get out of here?"

* * *

"Well, well, well, Gil's given us another faulty weather report, he never told us it's raining scientists." Barry spoke. Kowalski said nothing, mostly because he was focussed on assessing his injuries. Fortunately, it seemed the extended no further than minor bumps and bruises, "Where's your friend?"

"Do you honestly think I'm just going to tell you?" Kowalski replied, then paused. He was going to need a distraction if he was going to get away and Skipper was definitely long gone by now. He looked up at the dark hole in the ceiling. The Dart Frog would naturally go first and Kowalski would be left with some incompetent fool he was certain he could easily outwit, "Alright, alright, he's up in the ceiling, didn't you see him watching us?"

Immediately the Dart Frog fired up at the decaying ceiling and Kowalski wondered how long it was going to take before he got bored and climbed up there himself with half his hunting party, they would almost certainly fall through the weakened ceiling, and while that chaos was being sorted with, he'd grab a gun and run for it.

"Alright, stop shooting!" Skipper's voice yelled down from the hole in the ceiling, "I'm coming down." Kowalski's blood turned to ice as Skipper dropped down through the hole in the ceiling, his hands raised in surrender, glaring daggars at Kowalski.

"I know what it looks like, Skipper, but I didn't…"

"What, you didn't mean to say 'he's up in the ceiling, can't you see him watching us'?" Skipper spat, "What I wouldn't give to have settled things properly before these jokers turned up."

"Settle things properly?" the Dart Frog repeated, intrigued, "You mean you two were about to fight a duel? That was what I interrupted?" Skipper and Kowalski's expressions confirmed it, "A real live duel?" He grinned, "Oh, don't tell me, it was over a woman? A duel to win the heart of the woman you both love."

"Yes." Skipper replied.

"No!" Kowalski contradicted.

"My last request, kill him first." Skipper growled, "Make it painful."

"How romantic, you know those aren't supposed to happen in real life." The Dart Frog continued, "I feel terrible interrupting something so personal like that, I would have liked to have seen it."

"You took the words right out of my mouth." Skipper muttered. If Skipper hadn't been so blindly angry he might have paused to consider that usuallysomething isn't right when the hero finds himself agreeing with the villain.

"My orders are to take you two straight back to Hans immediately, alive if possible." Barry paused, weighing Skipper's captured weapon in his hand before saying something to someone behind him.

"'Give me a pistol, empty it first except for one shot.'" Kowalski translated immediately, noticing that Skipper looked puzzled. Skipper scowled at him.

"Yes." Barry spoke. Similarly, he emptied Skipper's weapon of anything but one shot. "Separate them, ten paces." He ordered and Skipper and Kowalski were dragged back the required distance. Barry tossed Kowalski's gun to his lieutenant and walked over to Skipper. "As your rival correctly stated, this weapon is loaded with one bullet." He announced, "The rules are fairly standard, I'm going to give the signal, and may the best man win."

"You really are crazy." Kowalski scoffed, "You're giving us each a loaded gun and expecting that we're going to behave ourselves and not shoot you?"

"That, is the point of the single shot." Barry countered, "Who do you think Skipper wants to see dead more? You or me? You, you're stealing his girl. Me? I'm just a henchman, and if he kills me, I'm not alone, there's no way he's getting out of this room alive."

"Skipper's not the only one who knows how to shoot."

"Yes, you, you can use up your only bullet on me, and Skipper will likely have killed you likely before I've even hit the ground." Barry smiled, and Skipper and Kowalski were each handed a pistol. "On the count of three: One, two…"

* * *

"Do we risk it?" Marlene asked. Rico seemed unsure on the point too. They were standing right in front of the emergency exit tunnel that would get them out of there. Then they'd rendezvous with Skipper and Kowalski who were already outside. "We've gotta risk it." She concluded, "If we're going to get anywhere we're going to need papers, my shirt's got a huge blood stain on it which makes me stick out like a sore thumb and if we can't risk going into town we'll need rations." Rico seemed to agree with this, and started leading the way to the other portion of the basement they'd put the majority of their equipment in. So far it appeared the coast was clear: there was one guard in the room, and he had his back to the door wondering how much of their emergency cash he could stuff into his pockets before they started bulging.

Rico opened the door almost silently. Before the sole guard even considered turning around, Rico had a hand clamped over his mouth and the knife was embedded in his back. Rico tossed the corpse away and returned to knife to his belt.

"Go 'head, I'll wa'ch here." Rico ordered and Marlene immediately grabbed two of the bags, indicating that Rico should take the other two.

"Like I was saying," Rico left the door to grab the two pre-packed bags, "while Skipper was out cold the knife slipped out of his hand and…" A split second later and it would have been a very different story: Rico stepped out of sight of the small window in the doorway just as the door opened and a duplicate of the less than effective guard of the provisions walked in, seeing the body. With the element of surprise Rico grabbed him like he had the other one and was about to dispose of him similarly when Marlene told him to wait.

"I wanna get some info out of him," She elaborated, "Alright, how many of you are there?" She got no answer, "Do something painful to him that doesn't make a lot of noise." She ordered.

"Hey, everything alright down there?" A voice called down the hall. Marlene and Rico looked at each other, "Hey? Everything alright?"

"Tell him everything's fine." Marlene hissed before Rico cautiously removed the hand from his mouth.

"Get over here! It's the….!" Rico replaced the hand.

"What are you doing, shut him up already!" Marlene hissed as Rico did nothing. Rico shook his head.

* * *

"Alright." The speaker who had originally called down the hallway spoke, "Open it." The door crashed open and four men stormed in, but nothing happened.

"Easy, don't shoot!" The single person inside called, "I dealt with it." He nodded to the two bodies, a man and a woman, drenched in blood, riddled with spots of deep crimson. "Tell the Dart Frog I got the dame and the psycho. I'll keep watch here." His superior cautiously approached the bodies, lifting Marlene's body slightly with his toe. She was dead.

"Are you sure?"

"They need you to catch those other two." He countered, "I'll stay here." Finally, the reinforcements nodded and left.

"See, you can be half intelligent when you try." Marlene spoke, standing up, revealing the gun she'd been covering the man with the whole time, "Ugh," She tried to wipe off some of the red substance the drenched her shirt but she didn't make a dent, "I hate the smell of paint."

"Luck' las' person t' use 'is place wa' a' artist." Rico commented. Marlene shrugged.

"Let's go find Skipper."


	21. Betrayal

Barry seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, purposely dragging out the silence before giving the order to shoot. Skipper seemed completely at ease, compared to Kowalski. It was no secret Skipper was the better shot by miles as well as the faster draw.

"Skipper, I swear, I didn't…" Kowalski tried to explain.

"Shut up, you're spoiling the moment!" The Dart Frog snapped, "Now I have to count again. One, two, three…" Barry had begun saying three when Kowalski fired. The single bullet missed Skipper as Kowalski hit the ground. But the shot was entirely on target. The single light that lit the basement room shattered, plunging the room into darkness. Kowalski stumbled towards where he remembered the door was as the room erupted into chaos.

He opened the door, briefly illuminating the room with sliver of light before he shut the door behind him. Skipper would find a way out, he always did. Kowalski was more worried about the Dart Frog. He made his way down the hallway, listening for anyone approaching, but his ears were still ringing from the shouting and gunfire he could still here coming from the room. Still, Kowalski knew where he was going: the front door and the wall facing the sea were both compromised, but he knew another passage way that would take them down to either the beach or an abandoned farm house a short distance away. They'd all probably regroup back at Antonio's, so hopefully after he'd escaped he could explain the truth to Skipper over the safety of a telephone call, then return in the flesh when things had calmed down.

Kowalski ducked into another storage area – he'd heard somewhere the winding passages had been used by smugglers a hundred years ago – slamming the door shut behind him and at first he thought he was safe.

"Been lookin' f' oo." Rico spoke, glaring at him. Kowalski spun around.

"Oh mama…"

* * *

Skipper fired another two shots into the room for good measure, then slammed the door shut. He shoved a convenient crate against the door and continued down the hall. He knew where Kowalski had gone. There was really only one escape route.

Skipper threw the door open expecting to see Kowalski climbing into the passageway, but instead he saw his second surprise of the day.

"Rico?!" He exclaimed in disbelief at the weapons expert stood next to Marlene, both of them in almost the same positions as she and Kowalski had been caught in, one of Marlene's stockings tossed carelessly over his shoulder. The weapons expert looked up from Marlene calmly meeting Skipper's disbelieving eyes. "This is like one of my worst paranoid nightmares!" Then Rico raised the hand hidden on the other side of Marlene's left leg, revealing a blood stained bandage.

"Becau' that all i' is."

* * *

"Do you remember that time in the barracks, just before you went on your first date with Doris?" Skipper spoke, looking up from the fire that crackled in the fireplace before them. Kowalski nodded, "This is just like that moment, isn't it?" Then he changed his mind. "Almost. You aren't going to hear me say it again." Kowalski just smiled.

"Alright, I won't make you apologise." Kowalski conceded, "I understand what you were thinking. I'd do the same if I walked in and saw you and Doris together." Skipper nodded, looking down at the floor.

"I can't believe I never realized it," Skipper spoke, "All this time, ever since what happened with Hans, she's had a knife wound in her leg. Let me get this straight, you were giving her medical supplies this whole time?"

"Yes, I'm no medical doctor, but I do know some of the basics of how to treat a wound," Kowalski replied, "I used whatever opportunity I got when you'd step out to reassess the wound and apply a new bandage. Due to the position of the wound on her leg, it required me to remove her stocking and put us in what looked like a compromising position. Marlene's bandage was soaked by paint which apparently made the wound sting painfully, so Rico was forced to replace the bandage before we left. You just had really bad timing." Skipper had to admit, that was unusual for him, but Kowalski pointed out that the math said it was bound to happen sometime, "She didn't want you to know about her leg because she was afraid you'd send her home." Kowalski was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Come in!" Skipper shouted, and Antonio opened the door.

"I've made the calls you wanted me to." The cabaret owner spoke, "I should get some answers in the next half hour."

"Thanks." Skipper replied and Antonio left.

"What was that about?" Kowalski asked. Skipper then decided to stand up, pacing the room in a slightly patronizing manor much like Buck Rockgut.

"I'm going to give you the answer plain and simple." He spoke, and it was clear he'd had a speech rehearsed, but opted not to use it, "I'm sending you and Marlene home."

"What?!" Kowalski protested.

"I guess today made me realize I couldn't bear to lose either of you."

"So you're striking out on your own again?" Kowalski questioned, "What about Rico?

"Well, you two aren't Rico, you can't hold your own."

"Neither can you." Kowalski countered, "Would you have gotten out of that house without knowing how to work those passages? Would you have pulled off that escape from Blowhole's camp last year if I hadn't taken inventory of all the guards so I knew one was missing? And if I remember correctly, last time you decided to go solo, you walked Marlene right into Hans trap." Skipper didn't have an answer for this, "Neither of us could have done any of this without the team." Skipper sat down again and took a long sip of his coffee. "I'm going to take that as you're not sending me home."

"Yeah, when you put it that way." He admitted reluctantly. "But I'm still sending Marlene away."

"Where can you send her?" Kowalski asked.

"Home…" Skipper replied.

"Where one of Hans' agents will pick her up?"

"Maybe not home, somewhere she'll be safe." Kowalski shook his head.

"It's too late for her to back out, Skipper." Kowalski countered, "She's as wanted as any of us, there's nowhere she can go where she won't be recognised, and good luck trying to send her back to England with everyone looking for us." Skipper had to admit Kowalski was right again. He shouted for Antonio to cancel the arrangements and for a while the two sat in silence.

"How did you know I wouldn't shoot you?" Skipper asked out of the blue.

"Hm?"

"During the duel, you had to have known I wasn't actually going to kill you or you wouldn't have spent your only bullet on the light." He elaborated.

"Well, the lights were out…"

"You know I don't need to see to shoot." Skipper countered. It was true, Skipper likely would be able to trace the sound of the shot or Kowalski's voice in the dark, or could have even shot him before he hit the deck after the lights went out.

"Skipper," Kowalski answered, "I'd feel sorely worried about the condition of Penguin if you're supposed to be one of their best shots and you couldn't hit an unarmed man from ten feet."

"True." Skipper admitted, "Boy, I hated your guts then, but to actually… I just couldn't do it."

The moment was shattered by another knock at the door.

"Come in!" Skipper called and Marlene entered.

"Just got a message from Blowhole." She spoke, handing Skipper the original message. Skipper still didn't trust Blowhole, so arranged an intricate system of passing the message to various resistance members so Blowhole wouldn't have a chance of following it. "He says Private's flight has been delayed 24 hours due to weather – that's the good news. The better news, he says he thinks he has someone who knows where he flies out from, only he can't get him to crack. Thinks we'd have better luck with him."

* * *

"Glad you could make it so quickly." Blowhole spoke, running half way down the driveway to meet them as they drove up. "You're all here? Like I said in my note, we're going to have to move fast, from what I've managed to get out of him, Private might be a bit of a drive."

"Who is he?" Skipper asked.

"I'm not all that sure, a friend of a friend found him. I know he works for Hans, I know he knows where the kid is – it's a bit of a long story. Are you all here?"

"Yes." Skipper replied as the others climbed out of the car, backing this up. Blowhole immediately ushered them back to the small, previously abandoned cottage.

"Straight ahead, turn left into the living room." Blowhole spoke, holding the door open for the ladies then shutting and locking it behind him. He pocketed the key.

"He's in here?" Skipper asked, pointing to a door.

"Yes." Blowhole replied. Skipper pushed the door open.

"Good evening, Skippar." Hans casually set aside some papers he'd been working on, "Come in, I think Dr Blowhole is going to insist on it if you don't." Skipper looked behind him to see Blowhole had him covered.

"I'm sorry, Kowalski." Blowhole spoke, not quite meeting the scientist's accusing glare, but didn't seem inclined to change his mind.


	22. Reasonable Resemblance

"I feel terrible about this, Kowalski." Doris spoke quietly, staring at the plane they were going to board in a matter of minutes. "But we didn't have any choice, right?" She added, biting her lip, "They knew that, right? They wouldn't have blamed us?"

"'Know' and 'don't', Doris." Kowalski corrected, not taking his eyes off the plane. That plane was a flight to Switzerland, where they would continue to New York. "They're still alive. Skipper's escaped by now." They were finally getting out of this craziness. Skipper would have – would – want them to take this opportunity. It might be their only opportunity to have any kind of a life together. "Skipper always escapes." He added. The first few passengers were welcomed aboard and the line began to move. On auto pilot he'd taken out their travel documents and began to follow the crowd.

"Oh, who do you think you're kidding, Kowalski?" Doris hissed, and though she was trying not to make a scene the gossip loving woman behind her was starting to lean in a little closer. "They're dead, they're all dead and you know it! You don't think he'd let them…"

"Oh, so you admit he's a killer?" Kowalski pointed out spitefully. "It's about time you finally realized he was no good – speaking of people fooling themselves…"

"Mr and Mrs Leibniz?" The stewardess interrupted. Kowalski then realized that it was their turn.

"Hm?"

"You are Mr and Mrs Leibniz?" She repeated, looking down at the displayed documents from which she'd gotten the name.

"Yes, yes, that's us." Kowalski replied.

"Welcome aboard Mr and Mrs Leibniz." She greeted cheerily, though there was a sympathetic look to her. "Good luck." She whispered as she handed them back their tickets. Kowalski froze, wondering how much she'd heard.

"Thanks." Doris replied. Kowalski was about to ask a question that probably would have given the whole game away but Doris started into the cabin. "She thinks we're eloping." She whispered.

"We are." Kowalski replied. In truth it was a lot more complicated than that. He still had that nagging feeling, that same feeling he'd known he'd have had those two times Skipper had accused him, if he'd been guilty.

* * *

Cautiously, Skipper stepped inside the room where Hans and half a dozen of the Dart Frog's men had suddenly materialized.

"Here we meet again." Hans continued, "Our pattern's becoming a bit like those comic books, isn't it? I catch you, hold you for a while, then you escape. Pattern repeats. It's getting very dull, but at least it's consistent." Skipper scowled, "Well done, Blowhole," He spoke, dismissing the scientist, "take your penguin and you can go." Hans passed him the papers he'd been working on as Skipper entered. Blowhole skimmed through them, then put them away, finding them seemingly satisfactory. He motioned to Kazoo who also seemed to have appeared.

"Come with me, Kowalski." Blowhole ordered. Kowalski did nothing. "Now." Kowalski, as surprised as he was, didn't want to go anywhere.

"I'd go with him." Barry smirked, "You're part of the payment for turning you guys in, and my boss always settles his debts…"

"When he can't get away with cheating his way out of them." Kazoo muttered.

"…I'm gonna have to start shooting the unnecessary people till you go." He seemed particularly eager to start this, whether it would have the desired effect on Kowalski or if eventually they were just going to have to knock him out and drag him out anyway.

"I'm not leaving you, Skipper…" Kowalski took a defiant step closer to Skipper.

"Those papers I just signed," Hans spoke, "file them, and Doris is all yours." Blowhole held them up in evidence, along with two passports for him and Doris.

"Skipper, I…" It didn't matter what he thought as Barry's threat also still stood. He left with Kazoo without a word or even looking back. He couldn't bring himself to.

"I'm glad that's settled." Hans spoke and appeared eager to get down to business, but then he noticed Blowhole, "You're still here?"

"I'm going to stay here until I get confirmation from Kazoo that Doris has been released." Blowhole countered, "And remember, McSlade knows I'm with you. Anything happens to me and he has his excuse."

"Suit yourself." Hans sighed, "You might enjoy this, actually."

"Wha' oo up to?" Rico demanded at Blowhole.

"I just want my sister to be happy." He replied. "Skipper for Kowalski and Doris."

"What about the kid?" Skipper countered. He couldn't believe he was trying to appeal to Blowhole's conscience, but then anything could happen in his job. "You've just killed him, y'know that?"

"Private's safe." Blowhole replied.

"Yeah, Private's about as safe as your sister and Kowalski are going to make it to Switzerland alive!" Skipper countered, but Blowhole didn't want to listen. The phone rang and he pounced on it like a tiger, listened for about ten seconds, then hung up and left.

"I think he just received the call that his sister's arrived safely with an associate of his." Hans commented.

"Oh, come on, you can't honestly be naive enough to believe he's not up to something!" Skipper protested again, but Blowhole ignored him and left.

"You're very unfair to me, Skipper." Hans commented. He glanced at his watch, "Right, let's resume where we were before you escaped." He glanced at Rico. "We don't need him." He thought aloud, casually picked up his pistol from the table and Skipper had less than a split second to think of something.

"Sk…!" Marlene began to protest, fortunately quietly, when she noticed Skipper was smiling, then she realized what she was doing and much to Rico's horror also began to smile as if she were attempting to disguise the fact that Hans was actually doing them a tremendous favour. Of course, by this point, Hans had to have noticed.

"What are you two so happy about?" He demanded instead of getting rid of Rico. Skipper pretended he didn't have any idea what he was talking about while Rico glared at them. Then Hans seemed to realize what Skipper was trying to make blatantly obvious he was pretending to hide from him, "So Rico knows too, likely more than either of you two do judging by your reaction." Skipper nodded as if there was no point in hiding it. He knew he'd just subjected Rico to everything he'd gone through, if he couldn't get them out. But he'd bought them some time. "Well, thank you, Skipper, I almost made a terrible mistake."

"Wait, was it Rico who turned us in?" Marlene suddenly demanded. That hadn't been Skipper's idea. Rico hadn't even known they were in the country, she knew that was impossible, "Kowalski told us that that you said you never received Dale's letter, so it had to have been Rico."

"No, it wasn't." Hans replied, before moving on. Apparently Marlene had hoped Hans would tell her more, "So, I suppose you know my reputation, Rico, the intelligent thing to do now is tell me everything."

"Then it must have been you." Marlene interrupted again glaring at Skipper, and this time it was real.

"What?!" Skipper exclaimed.

"Did I hear that right?" Barry questioned.

"'oo crazy." Rico spoke.

"Skipper?" Hans repeated, equally confused.

"I bet you gave us away trying to impress some girl." Marlene glared accusingly, "Yeah, you thought I never knew about…"

"Actually, it was you." Hans interrupted, which got an even more surprised reaction from the room than when Skipper had been accused. Marlene was at first at a complete loss for words. "I mean it, you told me you had the most important piece of information you'd ever had to pass on and that, your words: "we don't even know who the contact is; all we know is that we've gotta make my powder compact particularly conspicuous and then this mysterious contact will make it disappear.""

"What?" Marlene stuttered, "I… I never…!"

"Remember that fellow you met on the balcony during the party after you escaped McSlade?"

"Yeah, that was Skipper." Skipper frowned.

"I never went on the balcony all evening." He spoke.

"I know," Hans replied, "That was me. She walked onto the balcony, and apparently mistook me for you – it's only fair if you can impersonate me covered in bandages I can impersonate you in bad lighting – so I ran with it." Marlene had turned a sickly shade of sheet white. He turned back to Rico, "As I was saying, and I'll only say this once before things escalate…"

Skipper's gut told him to hit the ground a split second before a bullet sailed through the window, embedding itself in the wall – unfortunately – about two inches to the left of Hans' head. This was quickly followed by a hailstorm of metal; though everyone Skipper wanted dead had followed his example. The door crashed down and when the gunfire suddenly disappeared Savio was standing in the doorway with double the men Hans had.

"So, you said you did not know where the boy was and you did not have Skipper?" He gloated, looking down at Hans who was cautiously picking himself up from the ground, "This is embarrassing, isn't it?"

"I just found Skippar now, I was going to report it to McSlade, and I have no idea where Private is!" Hans protested, and though it wasn't clear if Savio believed him or not, he probably didn't, it didn't matter to him.

"I had the honour of going in first, but McSlade has this place surrounded." Savio continued leisurely, "He'll be here himself in a few minutes." Hans was now clearly in a very desperate position. He looked out the window, and sure enough, McSlade hadn't taken any chances when it came to him. He looked at Skipper, and then seemed to make a decision.

"Would you like to make £7,000*?" Hans asked. "Yes or no?"

"What do you want me to do?" Savio asked suspiciously

"Take Skipper and the others and get them out of here, hold them somewhere, just don't turn them over to McSlade and when I've sorted things out give them back. I'll give you £2000 now, and £3000 later."

"That would be a considerable risk, £7000 is far too little." Savio countered.

"That's all I've got." Hans replied, looking anxiously out the window.

"No, I know you too well." Savio shook his head, "When you say that's all you've got that means it's a quarter of what you've got. £25,000**, that a lot of money. I wonder where you got it?"

"Get them out of here and you'll find out!" Savio shrugged and ordered Skipper, Marlene and Rico to their feet.

"The money?"

"Do you really think I'd have it on me right now for you to kill me and take the moment I show you it?" He countered, "Hide Skippar, and I'll contact you to give you the money." Savio looked doubtful, "If I kill you, I'll never find out where Skipper is, so I won't cheat you." This seemed appealing to Savio. Hans wasn't happy with the situation, he knew there was a good chance Skipper was about to escape – Savio didn't know Skipper – but at least then he wouldn't have to pay. Skipper gave him one last grin as he walked away. Skipper tried to think of a one-liner, something about the one that got away getting away again, but he didn't think of it in time. Kowalski would have been able to think of one.

Kowalski. That was the first time Skipper had thought about Kowalski and now he realized, that while they'd practically already escaped, Kowalski probably hadn't. He and Doris were probably lying dead by the side of the road somewhere, or if they weren't dead already Hans had sent someone to intercept them at the airport. Hans wasn't the type who'd let someone run away with his wife and get away with it. He should have protested more, thought of something. He hoped Kowalski would forgive him. _Really it was Blowhole's fault, actually_, Skipper decided, _why did he have to be so naive?_

* * *

"Mr and Mrs Leibniz?" A voice spoke behind them.

"Yes?" Doris turned around and immediately their blood turned to ice.

"Would you come with us." The couple looked at each other, but silently agreed they had no chance of running. Kowalski nodded, and quietly followed them off the plane. Guarded closely, he and Doris were led towards a smaller, and more alarmingly, isolated building.

"What's going on here?" Kowalski demanded nervously, noticing they were now out of sight of the majority of the airport, "We're going to miss our flight."

"You won't be boarding that plane, Lieutenant Kowalski of the US Army Air Corps." One of the men countered. Kowalski winced.

"So you know about that." He muttered, "Naturally, I deny that." He immediately corrected, "I'm Dr Gottfried Leibniz – like the scientist – and we're going to Switzerland to see my wife's mother who's very ill…" Clearly nobody was buying it.

"You honestly thought he was going to let you two just walk off?" the other one scoffed. Kowalski had to admit to himself, that at least for a few minutes just before they boarded the plane, he'd actually thought they were going to make it.

Suddenly the speaker froze, staring down at the red that was blossoming across his chest. The other one barely had time to react before Blowhole had withdrawn the knife and similarly dispatched him.

"No, Skipper, I'm not that naïve." Blowhole grumbled, wiping the blood off the knife on a patch of grass near the corner he'd hidden behind. He inspected himself for blood stains and seemed satisfied with the lack of conspicuous ones. "Would you tell him that, Kowalski, since he's escaped again?" He noticed nobody was doing much, "Come on, you're going to miss your flight."

He walked them briskly back to the plane which was about to leave, but something had changed about Kowalski. They were nearing the plane which was boarding its last passengers when Kowalski whispered to Doris:

"I have to go back for Skipper." Blowhole fortunately was called aside by some of the airport staff to ask what the situation was with Mr and Mrs Leibniz.

"But Francis said he'd escaped?" Doris questioned.

"Which means he didn't." Kowalski explained. Doris seemed to see some sense in this, since if Skipper hadn't escaped the last thing Blowhole would want would be for Kowalski to rescue him. Doris glanced over her shoulder at her brother who was suitably distracted, speaking to a man about Kowalski's rough description from a distance near the front of the queue before approaching the stewardess and explaining to her that Blowhole was a disapproving member of the family. The stewardess nodded sympathetically and Kowalski's double seemed equally willing to help out. "I'll see you in New York." Kowalski whispered as he ducked off into the crowd.

When Blowhole finally turned around he saw Kowalski and Doris board the plane. Satisfied that he'd done his duty as a good brother he stepped back to watch the plane take off, just for good measure. But if either Kowalski or Blowhole had looked closer at the blond who boarded the plane with Kowalski's double, they would have realized she wasn't Doris.

***About £250,000 today**

**** About $1,000,000 today**


	23. Rogue

"Where do you think he got that money from?" Skipper asked offhandedly.

"Silence." Savio just hissed back, staring down the road. He really was taking this seriously if he was insisting on changing vehicles to avoid being connected to Hans. Skipper shrugged. "I don't ask questions, I know him, I know he has the money."

"Oh come on, you're curious." Marlene grinned, "I know you are."

"I 'ill stick t' my 'eory." Rico commented.

"That's crazy!" Marlene protested.

"It does explain all the facts," Skipper countered, "Y'know, if Rico's right, he's probably going to be getting a whole lot more money." Skipper knew he had Savio's interest, but continued as if he hadn't noticed.

"Oh come on, it couldn't be that." Marlene shook her head, then paused.

"Can't think of any other reason, can you?" Skipper commented. "Boy, I really envy the guy. Y'know, he's probably going to retire from this war five times as rich as the three of us put together."

"What's your theory?" Savio demanded, unable to restrain his curiosity. "How did he get all that money?" Skipper glanced uncomfortably over at the trees as if they might have ears. Savio walked away from the edge of the road and back over to the prisoners. Skipper motioned for him to come closer, giving the trees another cautious glance. He smiled, and whispered:

"He's a double agent for the British."

The trio roared with laughter as Savio huffed and returned to his original position.

"None of you seem to be able to take anything seriously." He grumbled.

"What?" Marlene laughed, "It sound like just the kind of thing he'd do, he could make twice the money and get to kill twice as many people taking money and orders from both sides?" Savio scowled.

"I don't care what Hans thinks you three know, I am sorely tempted to just…"

"Yeah, that'll be kinda hard to do without this." Skipper interrupted, dangling Savio's pistol tauntingly in front of him. Savio seethed as Skipper stood up, walking back to the original vehicle. "Keys please." He requested and Savio very reluctantly handed them over.

Skipper was about to climb into the driver's seat when he heard the sound of a car approaching down the road. The car rounded a bend in the road and suddenly it was practically on top of them. There was no point in trying to hide anywhere, the car had already seen them.

The vehicle slowed to a stop next to Skipper who was trying to think of a convincing reason why the fact he was hijacking a car was entirely innocent. He'd rather not have any extra trouble if he could help it, for once. Private was counting on him.

"There was a 78.8965% chance I'd find you here." The driver spoke poking his head out of the car, "That is, assuming the scene played out as I predicted, which, clearly it did."

"Escaped Blowhole and Hans successfully?" Skipper asked, "How come you aren't in New York."

"I sent Doris on ahead. I couldn't leave you guys behind." Kowalski replied, climbing out of the vehicle, "Hey, I've been having some engine trouble…"

"Perfect timing, I was just about to hitch a ride from Savio." Skipper replied, then said something about if Kowalski's car was stolen – which it undoubtable was – it would be a good idea to make sure it wasn't found for some time. Kowalski had long since lost interest.

"By the way, if you want to watch the fireworks, there's a good view from the hill over there." Kowalski pointed out, "Last I saw Hans was in a very awkward position." Skipper looked cautiously at Savio, then in the direction Kowalski had indicated. In the end, all three of them decided there was just enough time to do some 'reconnaissance and intelligence gathering' before they left. "I'll watch the prisoner, I just came from there."

"Thanks, Kowalski."

Skipper had barely disappeared from sight when Kowalski turned to Savio.

"Where is he?" The scientist demanded.

"Just over the hill, like you said." Savio shrugged.

"No he's not." Savio didn't even seem prepared to acknowledge him this time. It was then that Savio noticed something different about the scientist from what he'd been led to expect of him. "You know where Hans is, and you're going to tell me."

* * *

"He's gone already, isn't he?" Marlene spoke looking down from the hill at the building now swarming with McSlade's operatives.

"Long gone." Skipper grumbled.

"Lucky 'walski." Rico concurred. "'ey, d'ya thin'…"

Rico was interrupted by a yell so loud it was amazing McSlade's men didn't hear it. It came from the direction of the vehicles, but it wasn't Kowalski's voice. They ran down through the woods, coming to the section of road where the cars were parked. Kowalski's car was still parked there, though on closer inspection Skipper would discover it was missing the distributor cap. Skipper's car was gone and neither Savio nor Kowalski were anywhere to be seen.

* * *

Kowalski remembered what Blowhole had said before, that Hans was too smart to go back to his old hiding place, but Kowalski realized it was precisely the opposite. Hans was smart enough that he knew they'd assume he wouldn't return to his original haunt, so that was exactly where he'd gone. In hindsight, all that was obvious and it had taken barely a hint of a clue from Savio to work it out. Of course, Savio had also pieced it together as soon as he'd noticed Kowalski's reaction, so Kowalski had left him somewhere where it would take the team a fair bit of time to find him. Kowalski needed a little more time without them there, and between finding Savio and another car or the distributor cap he'd thrown into the bushes, he'd have that time. This was personal.

Kowalski pulled into the trees and turned off the engine. He climbed out of the car and made his way through the trees, following much the same path as Marlene had taken on their first search of the house. Kowalski was relying on his educated guess that Hans would be either alone or relatively unguarded: if he was anything like Skipper, he was paranoid of just about everyone around him, especially with people like McSlade doing their best to make life hard for him. Kowalski tested this hypothesis by cautiously starting across the lawn towards the side entrance to the building. Nobody shot at him, so apparently he'd been correct. That, or there was still the possibility nobody was there at all.

Kowalski fished the piece of wire he'd specially prepared for the occasion and picked the lock in what likely beat his personal record. He slipped in the door, silently moving down the empty corridor. As he walked, what had previously been a barely audible noise outside the door became the sound of one half of a conversation over telephone, radio or other communications device.

"…Yes, yes, everything's exactly how you wanted it." Hans' voice echoed through the structure like some kind of malevolent spectre, "Of course, you'll give the other £25,000 to my operative on delivery... You're a man of your word, you've told me before, but I don't trust that considering the fact you're in the same game as me…" Kowalski barely took in the conversation other than to follow the voice to its source. As he gripped the weapon he'd taken from Savio's care he had only one thought on his mind: Doris. "And what about the other part of my payment…? Yes, I got that much out of Skipper, obviously it's rather important to me… I know this is blackmail, but think how much less cost and inconvenience it is to meet my demands rather than have to…" Hans stopped. Taking Kitka's advice, he'd started sitting facing the door – something Kowalski hadn't known so hadn't anticipated – and noticed the scientist immediately, but even then Kowalski had him covered first. "We're going to have to continue this conversation some other time." He spoke, eyeing Kowalski with vague interest and switched off the radio, "Well, to what do I owe the honour of a non-Skipper-sanctioned visit?"

"Doris." Kowalski spoke. Hans knew exactly why he was there, but apparently wanted it spelled out for him.

"Normally I'd ask you three questions at this point, "who are you, what's your story and why do you want to kill me?", but I don't really take you all that seriously." Hans replied, "So, what about my wife?"

"Where are you holding Doris?" Kowalski demanded, "She never got on that plane. What did you do with her?"


	24. All For Naught

Hans said nothing.

"Is she alive?" Kowalski demanded, "Yes or no."

"She's alive." Hans replied bluntly, "You know, I had a feeling she wouldn't be getting on that plane."

"Yeah, because you took her off it." Kowalski countered, "She was going to be happy, we were so close…" Hans didn't seem to care, "What kind of a monster are you?"

"She got off that plane of her own free will; I had nothing to do with it." Hans denied, though far from emphatically. "Did you ever ask her if she wanted to go to New York? Or did you and her brother just abduct her under the excuse of doing what's best for her?"

"She wanted to go." Kowalski scowled, "And you traded her for Skipper."

"I think she understands that was necessary."

"You were never going to let her go from the start." Kowalski tossed the folder with the papers Hans had given Blowhole onto the desk. "Sure, the first few pages were signed properly, but after that its worth nothing. Even if we did manage to escape you wanted to make sure Doris couldn't marry me, move on or start a new life without being haunted by you."

"Well of course I wasn't just going to give her to you." Hans replied with that same infuriating impassiveness, "I love her." Kowalski highly doubted that.

"I don't know what you're playing at, but..."

"What, you're going to try to kill me again?" Hans smiled.

"Yes, I…"

"Kowalski?" Kowalski paused mid-sentence as Doris poked her head into the room through the other door, staring at the scene unfolding, "What's going on?"

"What do you think, Doris?" Hans replied. "Come on in." Doris paused a moment, looking from Kowalski to him and back, then stepped into the room shutting the door behind her. "Where were we?" There was that taunting smile again, "Yes, you just said you were going to finish the job." He spoke as if humouring a small child.

"You are not going to hurt her anymore." Hans shook his head.

"Let me get this straight: so you're saying you think that you can shoot an unarmed man in cold blood, looking me right in the eye as you do it?" Kowalski tried to convince himself he certainly could, but his hand was shaking, "I'm sitting right here in front of you, you can't turn away, I might grab some hidden weapon. You can't take your eyes off me for one second because I might be playing possum. And then there's Doris watching you this whole time." He nodded to the love of Kowalski's life who was staring transfixed by the whole scene, a tear brimming in her eye, "Remember how you lost her last time? Do you really think she'll ever forget that you're a killer? Do you think you'll ever be able to forget?"

"Doris, I'm doing this for you." Kowalski spoke, briefly glancing away from Hans. Doris gave him no discernable sign weather she approved or not. She was frozen like a statue. "And you of all people calling me a killer…"

"Oh, I know my own capabilities." Hans replied, "I think you know yours too. Look at yourself, you're barely keeping it together. I think you've just realized this isn't a lab, watching events you're in control of from a distance. If you forgot to carry the two, it's not going to affect you. You can do it again. But you can't bring me back from the dead if the guilt is too much for you. And it will be. You're not like me and Skipper, you're a scientist, you belong in a lab dealing with theories, not in the field dealing with reality." Kowalski watched that tear slip down Doris cheek, but he couldn't tell who it was for. No, Hans was getting to him. She loved him, not Hans. Hans was just messing with him, trying to make him think Doris had come back on her own. "Why don't we find out for certain?"

"What?"

"This is Doris' life we're talking about, she should make the decision." Hans turned to Doris who was stood roughly equidistant from the two of them. Kowalski noticed he'd stood up, leaving the radio equipment on the desk. "You get to choose, Doris, this is your life. Me or Kowalski?" Doris took a shaky breath. "It's alright, I just want you to be happy. Pick whichever of us you want. Just remember, I'll always care about you, but I'll respect your decision." Doris nodded slowly.

"Doris." Kowalski called, "Let's get out of here. There's another plane we can catch, tomorrow we'll be in New York. We'll find some way to sort all this out." He couldn't hide the desperation in his voice. But what was he worried about? There was no question, she was going to pick him. Hans couldn't hurt her, he was the one holding the gun. She took one small step in his direction.

"Kowalski…" She paused, holding his gaze for a moment as Kowalski's confidence slowly turned to fear and finally to full blown panic. "I'm sorry." She turned on her heel and walked three slow and deliberate steps towards Hans before her façade of control dropped entirely and she ran the rest of the steps into his arms.

Kowalski could barely comprehend what he was seeing, but all of it was happening. It was like some kind of terrible nightmare, a fear too terrifying to have ever occurred to him would happen. Unable to believe his observations he stared disbelievingly at Hans, who was calmly seated on the desk, his arms around the sobbing Doris.

"It's going to be alright," He whispered, "I'm sorry I had to make you do this." He looked up at Kowalski, "Seems she's made her decision." Kowalski said nothing, "I can hardly imagine what you're feeling right now. Everything, this whole past year, all some kind of delusion to justify hounding her even when she wasn't interested. Of course, Doris couldn't bear to break your heart, but she was going to have to tell you the truth some time."

"I don't know how you set this up…" Kowalski started, but his heart wasn't in it.

"How could I?" Hans countered, "I have nothing on her, I'm unarmed, I can't be threatening her. You need to accept the facts. The whole past year, what you thought was your life: merely a twisted obsession. All you've ever done since your little high school romance was hurt her. I'm not going to say I'm a good person, or that I meet the standards of your principles, but maybe you should take a look at yourself as well."

"I…" Kowalski began, but didn't finish.

"What exactly have you got left to live for now?" Hans continued, "The team doesn't need you, Skipper replaced you. Nigel will never take you back after what you did – betraying your country to chase after Doris? And all the grief you put your friends through for your obsession? What have you got left? What's there to live for?"

"There's... There's still…"

"Killing me? You'd do that to Doris?" Hans interrupted, "Well, you're colder than I am." He shrugged, and there was more of the Hans Kowalski knew and hated, "This is why I don't take you seriously, you can talk a lot, convince yourself of a lot, but when it comes down to taking action, you can't do it. Even last time, with Skipper's help, you couldn't finish the job. I'm still here." Hans smiled, "I _know_ you won't kill me." He untangled himself from Doris, walking several feet away, mockingly leaving himself a clear target, "You can't."

Suddenly Kowalski felt something snap inside him.

"You're wrong."

All in a blur he felt the weapon crack four times in quick succession and Hans stumbled backwards staring at him with the disbelief Kowalski had felt a moment ago as his jacket began to stain with blood. But all that was in Kowalski's eyes was burning contempt.

"Survive that." Kowalski spoke through clenched teeth. Hans bloody hand grabbed the desk he'd landed against in a poor attempt to stabilize himself, looking down at his wounds.

"Y… you'd be surprised." He winced, "I've had worse…" The life seemed to fade from his eyes and he crumpled to the floor. Kowalski slipped the gun back into his pocket, staring at the body as blood began to pool on the floor.

Suddenly he felt Doris arms around him, holding him with the warmth and familiarity he remembered.

"Kowalski, I'm so sorry." She cried, "He said he had Private and he'd kill him if I didn't play along." The numb Kowalski had felt a moment ago began to melt, "I should have listened to you last year. Let's catch that plane to New York…" Doris' voice trailed off at the loud sound of a door being kicked down. The crash was followed by the thump of heavy boots running down the corridor and Skipper, Rico and Marlene burst into the room. Skipper's eyes immediately locked on to Hans' body.

"Kowalski, what were you thinking?" Skipper demanded, as Rico and Marlene rushed over to the body, "He's the only one who knows where Private is!"

"He's still alive!" Marlene called over his shoulder, frantically attempting to apply compression to one of the more quickly bleeding wounds.

"Rico, run into town, get a doctor." Skipper ordered, looking from the body to Kowalski in a mixture of worry and frustration.

Rico returned in record time with the local doctor, and had apparently explained the situation on the way. The whole room was silent as the doctor examined Hans who was still somehow breathing. Finally he stood up, shaking his head.

"He's lost too much blood. He'll be gone in a matter of minutes." The physician spoke.

"What do you need? He's got like a whole laboratory down there, you name it, he's probably got it." Skipper spoke. The doctor just shook his head.

"I'd need to give him a transfusion immediately, and even then I couldn't guarantee I'd be doing more than buying him time."

"I just need to be able to get him to talk." Skipper pleaded, but the doctor just shook his head.

"Wait, Skipper, you're his blood type." Marlene spoke.

"I'm afraid it wouldn't be safe or sufficient…" the doctor began, but Marlene cut him off.

"Remember before when he was… he kept your blood, didn't he?" She started for the cellar, "He said if you talked he kept all the blood he took so he could bring you back." She raced down the stairs then reappeared with a bag of red substance marked "Skipper". She shoved it into the doctor's hands, "Alright, doc, fix him up, there's still some more where that came from."

After that it was just a matter of waiting. Marlene acted as nurse while Rico cleaned his knife, Kowalski blamed himself for becoming too emotional and forgetting about Private and Skipper blamed himself for not realizing something was wrong with Kowalski when he appeared out of nowhere. Doris held Kowalski's hand for the small good it did him.

"Skipper!" Marlene called, "He's conscious!"

* * *

The car sped along the road, tires squealing as it rounded the last bend. Skipper could see the small plane's passenger being loaded aboard, the boy's nervous form standing out against the orange light of the sunset. Skipper almost sent the car into a ditch twice as he sped down the road but the engines were running. The door was shut after Private.

The man on the tarmac turned around firing at the car as he ran for cover. Rico shot back, missing the first time as Skipper barely dodged a neglected crate. The weapons expert's eyes quickly locked on to Barry as he reached cover and just as he dived behind the stack of crates he fired, wounding the man. But it didn't really matter now.

The car skidded to a halt as the plane started to move, going faster and faster down the runway and finally began to lift from the ground, all of them powerless to do more than stare at it as it disappeared up into the sky. Skipper knew that was probably the last time he'd ever see the boy.

"Drop your weapons and raise your hands above your head!" McSlade's voice shouted. Skipper's eyes returned to earth, "You're completely surrounded."


	25. Where It All Started

"I guess they figured he'd be the hardest to catch." Maurice remarked gloomily, watching as Skipper was marched across the compound to the commandant's office. "Left bringing him in till last."

"I never asked you to go after me." Kowalski pointed out. Maurice grumbled something along the line of that if Kowalski really had the intelligence he claimed he possessed he'd have known that Nigel wouldn't be fooled forever and would send his third best team (since his first and second had gone missing) to find out what became of them. "This is still better than the five of us getting shot as spies." Maurice had to agree with that. "Is it true what you heard about Private…?"

"Shot down, he should be arriving any minute." Maurice replied, "Bad luck." Kowalski nodded. Skipper had barely entered when a second truck drove up and Private and Parker were dragged out. Parker was taken straight for the cooler while Private followed Skipper into Blowhole's office.

"…It never ceases to irritate me how you pen-gu-ins get out of things." Kowalski heard Blowhole speak as after a few minutes the two penguins and arch villain left the building, starting in Kowalski and Maurice's direction. "And McSlade actually managed to get away with your excuse: Hans turned the two of you lose claiming you're Nigel's disobedient nephew and the infamous Skipper…"

"But he is the infamous Skipper?" Private questioned. Blowhole ignored him and Skipper corrected him that he was once again Private Jack Knife.

"… all to divert attention from the fact he was a double agent." Blowhole finished, "It's ridiculous, but it got me my job back." Skipper commented something about unfortunate side effects, "Don't think because you did that things will be any different. By the way, what is it exactly you have on McSlade…?"

"Y'really think I'm gonna tell you?" Skipper replied. Blowhole made one half-hearted attempt to threaten the information out of him, but quickly gave up on it.

"Now Rico and Kowalski are already here, of course he lets Marlene go because he thinks she's pretty and can't think what else to do with her. Then your story, 'Pierre'," Blowhole continued, "I think I did a nice job of arranging for you to be 'shot down'."

"But I was shot down?" Private corrected.

"Not in that plane," Blowhole sighed. He turned to Skipper, "Haven't you told him his story yet?" He glanced at his watch and realized he had an urgent call in about thirty seconds. "Tell him it." He hurriedly left, leaving Private and Skipper with Kowalski, Rico and Maurice.

"I suppose it's nice to see some familiar faces." Private commented. That certainly was a glass half full view of the situation.

"As I was gonna say," Skipper continued, "'Pierre' had hijacked a plane to try to get back to England, got shot down with the plane carrying Hans' British agent, agent died in the crash but they drag you and Parker back here." He finally acknowledged Kowalski, "Good to see you again, 'Corporal Smith'."

"Nice to see you too, _Private_ Knife." Kowalski had clearly been looking forward to technically outranking Skipper again.

"Well, I suppose I'm not entirely lying." Private reasoned, "I mean, me and Parker really were shot down. I can't believe Hans had me kidnapped, ironically, to send me home."

"'ell, £25,000 fro' ya 'ncle Nigel 'll do tha'." Rico pointed out before the kid got any ideas about Hans having down it out of the goodness of his heart.

Kowalski noticed there was once again movement at the gates as a stretcher was unloaded from a third truck.

"What's going to happen to him?" Private asked as two lobsters began to carry Hans across the compound to the cooler.

"Oh, he'll be shot the moment he's strong enough to stand." Kowalski replied. This was one of those few cases when his principles had no qualms about gloating. "After all, he was caught red handed smuggling one of Nigel's agents out of the country."

"You four seem to have gotten out of this alright." Hans commented as he neared them, "'ve got a question," he winced, "Doris? Sh… She made it out okay?"

" Yes, she's fine." Private replied. Hans smiled faintly through what Skipper hoped was excruciating pain.

"Thanks." He was carried out of earshot.

"Well, I guess we learn something valuable every day." Skipper commented.

"Yes, I suppose it is a promising realization about this world that even someone as evil as Hans, deep down, has some good inside him." Private mused philosophically. Kowalski scoffed.

"No, it means he's up to something." Skipper corrected.

"Oh." Private whispered, "Well, maybe just a little bit of good somewhere, though…?" It was pretty clear nobody was going to agree with him on that one.

"Excuse me, Corporal Smith." The familiar voice of a familiar lobster spoke behind him. Kowalski, knowing exactly what came next, grinned. Perhaps in one way it wasn't so bad to be back, "Ms Blowhole would be honored by your presence at dinner."

"You may tell Ms Blowhole I gladly accept." Kowalski replied.

"You'd better get ready then. Dr Blowhole has kept your dress uniform and…" As Kowalski walked away he distinctly noticed Skipper watching him leave with that look that could only mean one thing.

"Alright, listen up," Kowalski heard him whisper excitedly to the team, "I've got a plan to get us out of here. It's fool proof…"

**The End**


End file.
